


can't fight (the moonlight)

by curledupkitten (chanyeol)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Crack, M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:52:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chanyeol/pseuds/curledupkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>kyungsoo had never questioned the story about the broken tree branch and a reckless unicyclist, but maybe he should have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't fight (the moonlight)

**Author's Note:**

> for the tumblr prompt: "kyungsoo is supernatural and fucks jongin over the kitchen table"  
> yeah okay this is!! sort of?? that story!!!  
> ✩ ✩ sorry for all the extra stuff, i guess. this is silly. i hope this is okay and you enjoy it anyway, anon~~  
> ✩ i know this kind of fic has been done before by some talented authors, so please forgive the attempt ✮  
> haha also this is for my tlist  
> ~rated material cheer squad~  
> originally posted here: http://kitception.tumblr.com/post/50996236056/for-tumblr-anon  
> edit nov 4: and now... it's been beta'd... OuO

㊊  
  
  
Kyungsoo sighs and runs his fingers through his new cut. It's stiff with hairspray. Kyungsoo wants to get in the shower and stay there until it feels like hair again. "Does it look okay?"  
  
"Not as good as mine does," Chanyeol says. "Mine looks  _fantastic_." Intricate braids and clips. It looks like it had during the middle of their first,  painfully long, promotional period. Chanyeol resembles a fairytale princess or something.  
  
"You look like an extra in Lord of the Rings," Baekhyun says, and Chanyeol mimes shooting him in the face with his index finger and thumb before returning to his preening. "You are  _too much_."  
  
"Or I'm just enough." Chanyeol winks, or maybe spasms,  (one can never be sure, with Park Chanyeol), and Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose at the smell of his friend's self-satisfaction. It's an acrid scent.  
  
"Your hair looks great, Kyungsoo," Baekhyun says. "The sides have already grown back in." Baekhyun's own hair is recently auburn. Really, idol hair changes so often that Kyungsoo shouldn't even worry. If he hates it, it'll be normal again tomorrow. If he likes it, it'll be lime green tomorrow. It's best not to get attached. "Your hair grows  _so_  fast."  
  
Kyungsoo smiles wryly. "Always has." Too fast. Abnormally fast. Fast enough that Kyungsoo sometimes cuts it on his own to keep suspicion low.  
  
Being an idol who tries to slip under the radar is its own conundrum.  
  
"Jongin likes it, too." Chanyeol looks at him directly. "Your haircut, I mean."  
  
Ugh, it's so annoying, how Chanyeol is posturing like he thinks he knows something Kyungsoo doesn't want him to know. Like he knows a ~secret~. Kyungsoo has plenty of secrets, but none of them involve Kim Jongin.

Kyungsoo frowns. "What is that supposed to mean?"  
  
There is no particular reason Jongin's opinion should or would mean more to Kyungsoo, (other than the fact that Jongin, as Kyungsoo's roommate, has to look more often at whatever hair Kyungsoo has). So why is Chanyeol making that assumption? Kyungsoo sucks his lower lip, resisting the urge to bite down on it and break the skin.  
  
"Do you really not know?" Baekhyun is amused. Kyungsoo isn't. "It's all rather  _obvious_." Baekhyun's smirk borders obnoxious.  But only if by 'borders', one meant drawing ✮'s and ❤'s around the word obnoxious in order to emphasize the meaning and underscore it.  
  
"What is obvious, exactly?" Some things are  _excruciatingly_  obvious. Like the fact that Joonmyun is nervous as soon as the cameras come on, the scent of anxiety dripping off of him thickly enough to choke Kyungsoo if he stands too close. Or the fact that Baekhyun has ~weird~ dreams at night about tying people up that Kyungsoo can hear through the walls. Or the fact that Zitao calls Sehun every evening because those two miss their parents the most out of all of them, except for maybe Yifan who mopes and sniffles in secret when he thinks no one's around. Those are obvious things, to Kyungsoo. He hadn't thought he was missing any obvious stuff that involved…  
  
" _Jongin_ ," Baekhyun says, stressing the name, and Kyungsoo blinks owlishly. "And his… you know, ✩ _thing_ ✩."  
  
"Thing," he says, as Chanyeol cackles. Kyungsoo gives him a pointed glare, but Chanyeol's laughter is as infectious as it is infuriating, so Kyungsoo feels a smile creep-crawling up his face against his volition.  
  
Jongin chooses then to peek his head around the door. "We've got to go," he says. "Our manager is waiting for us." His hair falls into his eyes. He's a lost puppy as he immediately finds Kyungsoo with his gaze. He always does that.  
  
"We'll be out in a second," Kyungsoo says, since Jongin is looking only at him. In reply, Jongin gives him a slow, warm smile that has Kyungsoo's insides melting like ice cubes in hot tea.  
  
He smiles distantly back at Jongin, which causes Jongin's smile to visibly slip. Jongin's expressions are easier to read than the neon noraebang signs in Gangnam, sometimes, even when Kyungsoo does his best  _not_  to read them.  
  
"Okay," Jongin says glumly, a sudden wet weekend, as though Kyungsoo's unenthusiastic response has ruined his entire day. "I'll tell the manager."  
  
Well, it's not Kyungsoo's fault. Jongin is a big boy, and Kyungsoo doesn't have to baby him.  
  
Jongin disappears, not closing the door behind him. Kyungsoo imagines his slumped shoulders and gloomy face. It's still not Kyungsoo's fault. At all. Nope.  
  
Baekhyun is ~looking~ at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo can feel those clever eyes boring into him, and it makes him want to snap.  
  
He takes a deep breath to calm himself. Kyungsoo makes a constant effort not to lose his temper, because it's important that Kyungsoo keeps that side of him under control. The other members of EXO have never seen him angry, and Kyungsoo thinks that's for the best.  
  
Something like Baekhyun staring at him smugly wouldn't usually bother Kyungsoo, but there's something about Jongin that makes Kyungsoo's nerves more raw. Everything seems closer to the surface. Happiness, annoyance, anger, pleasure.  
  
So maybe,  _maybe_ , Kyungsoo has  _one_  secret that involves Kim Jongin.  
  
The secret truth that Kyungsoo has absolutely no idea what it is about Jongin that throws him off so badly. Makes him feel dangerous like he hasn't since he was sixteen.  
  
Kyungsoo frowns again.  
  
Chanyeol wraps an arm around Kyungsoo's shoulders, and Kyungsoo bristles but tolerates it, because Chanyeol means no harm. He's more like an exceptionally vain and uncoordinated dinosaur in a glass shop, who happens to smell like the women's perfume section of Hyundai Department Store. As Chanyeol leans in, Kyungsoo decides that at least the flowery scent  _does_  block out the lingering musk that Jongin always leaves behind.  
  
㊊  
  
Kyungsoo realized he was, well,  _different_  from the other boys when he was about thirteen.  
  
Around then, his middle school buddies had started being interested in what sorts of things a girl had up her skirt.  
  
Kyungsoo, on the other hand, started thinking about how sometimes, he was so hungry, he might like to  _eat_  those girls. Raw.  
  
Not exactly listed in the textbook under  _'side effects of puberty.'_  Not that Kyungsoo was too interested in the textbook. ✩((He's never been a huge fan of reading, and even now it's hard to even get him to read the instruction manuals for complicated furniture construction or things like that, which drives Chanyeol up a wall.)) ✩  
  
By the time a year had passed, every full moon Kyungsoo's senses would magnify, his nose picking up smells from kilometers away, his tongue unable to tolerate cooked meat, and his skin hypersensitive to the touch. Weirdest of all, Kyungsoo started to hear voices in his head, whole conversations between people Kyungsoo wasn't even sure were real.  
  
It was enough to make middle school more ~interesting~ than it might have been, otherwise.  
  
When he was fifteen, a first year in high school, his parents sat him down at the kitchen table. The full moon was coming, and Kyungsoo could smell their nervousness clinging to them like a sickly cologne. He could taste it in his mouth and it itched at the patch of skin between his shoulder blades that always felt tight and dry at this time of month, no matter how much lotion he awkwardly tried to rub there.  
  
"Kyungsoo," his father said, "we have something to tell you. It's important."  
  
"Okay," Kyungsoo replied, tapping his fingers on the wooden table. The sound was loud, and echoed in his ears. The reverberation tickled his eardrums. "I'm listening."  
  
"When you were four," his mother started, before pausing. She then cleared her throat. "When you were four, we made a  _mistake_."  
  
"What kind of mistake?" Kyungsoo asked. He licked at his lips, and his tongue felt heavy and thick. He was really craving a steak, and he could tell there was one being cut down the street, at the butcher's. He still didn't know how he knew, but he'd had two years to get used to the heightened reach he had to the rest of the world.  
  
"We… you got separated from us," his mother continued. "At the park." Kyungsoo tilted his head, and yes, mixed into the nervousness was a lurking fear. It tasted even worse on the roof of his mouth. "And when we found you, you'd been…" She buried her face in her hands.  
  
"Bitten," his father whispered. "You'd been bitten."  
  
"By  _what_?" Kyungsoo knew they were expecting more of a reaction than this. He couldn't help but disappoint them. His father was searching his gaze deeply, but Kyungsoo had nothing waiting there for him to find.  
  
The scar on his lower back. It did sort of look like teeth. Kyungsoo had never questioned the story about the broken tree branch and a reckless unicyclist. Maybe he should have.  
  
They didn't answer. Kyungsoo's stomach rolled. He felt sick, but that might have been the hunger. He really wanted steak. Rare and bleeding, preferably. Right out of the plastic. Maybe even right off the cow. Maybe just the cow, in general. He might have found that gross a few years ago, but his desires clouded his logic.  
  
Finally, his mother dropped her hands from her face and looked directly at Kyungsoo. "A werewolf," she said, and Kyungsoo felt a shiver go through him, like someone had just poured cold water over his head. "You were bitten by a werewolf, Kyungsoo."  
  
That was ridiculous. There was no such thing as werewolves. His parents, Kyungsoo thought, had lost the plot. They were, he decided, playing a horrible prank on him.  
  
Only Kyungsoo's parents didn't tell jokes or  _play pranks_. They mostly did things like tell him to iron his shirts so they had nerdy creases in the sleeves, talk about organic rice alternatives, and query him about his grades. Their faces, too, were serious. Kyungsoo ceased his slow tap at the table.  
  
"A werewolf," he repeated, and it felt like truth on the tip of his tongue. It certainly explained a few things.

It was probably ridiculous, for Kyungsoo to believe in werewolves so easily, but…  
  
Werewolves, Kyungsoo learned, from extensive research that had resulted in more confusion than clarity, don't suffer their first change until they're old enough to physically handle it. Kyungsoo would be sixteen soon. He looked down at his hands and imagined them as paws. It wasn't so terrifying. Kyungsoo was never really scared of much.  
  
Everything, from the smells to the cravings to even the overheard conversations…. They all made sense, when Kyungsoo compared it all to the textbook cases of it. Old stuff,  _rare_ , but it all seemed pretty accurate, as far as Kyungsoo was concerned.  
  
There was no point in being afraid. It wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't make Kyungsoo normal. It wouldn't make all the strange things stop. So Kyungsoo swallowed down all those unnecessary feelings and tucked them away in an unused corner of his chest, to sit alongside the other inconvenient things he didn't want to think about.  
  
The first change hurt. As soon as the fever set in, he locked his parents out of the room. The next morning, he opened his eyes to a destroyed mattress and claw marks in the door. But no one was injured, and if Kyungsoo's father looked wary and tired over breakfast, it faded away as soon as Kyungsoo pulled the cereal out of the cabinet and sat down across from him to eat.  
  
"All clear?" he asked, and Kyungsoo nodded.  
  
"We should probably do something about the door," he answered. "For next month."  
  
"Right," his father said, and that was that.  
  
Kyungsoo taught himself to control his senses, turning off his hearing during exams and learning how to tolerate the smells. The tightness in his muscles was harder to ignore, but Kyungsoo managed it, with practice.

At least, Kyungsoo figured, there were advantages to his… condition. One thing was the complete lack of distraction caused by sexual urges. While his classmates dealt with inappropriate erections during math class, Kyungsoo was free to focus on formulas and theories.  
  
Sex stuff, he decided, was probably different for werewolves.  
  
And so Kyungsoo's life continued, if not completely normal, (--it's hard to be completely normal when you turn into a furry creature once a month--) at least smoothly enough.  
  
Eventually, he learned how to control the physical change. He couldn't stop the fevers, but the elevated temperature and extreme discomfort were a small price to pay for the freedom of an unlocked door at night and the way his mother no longer looked so afraid as the moon waxed.  
  
"He tried to take you from us," Kyungsoo's mother said, one morning in the kitchen. "When you were twelve. He knocked on the door and said you'd start to feel different, soon, and you'd be happier with your kind."

Kyungsoo snorted. "My  _kind_?"  
  
"We couldn't give you up." Her hands were covered in wet flour. Pajeon. She was making pajeon. "I hope that was the right decision."  
  
Kyungsoo tried to imagine his shy and retiring father putting his foot down when a werewolf knocked at their door. He closed his eyes. "Of course it was," Kyungsoo says. "You're my parents."  
  
"That's what your father said," Kyungsoo's mother replied, looking down at her messy fingers. Kyungsoo swallowed. "He said he could help you. Explain it all to you. But we thought…"  
  
"Good." And Kyungsoo might not have been with  _his kind_ , but he would figure it all out on his own. He'd never been the type, after all, to read the instructions.  
  
That's why when Kyungsoo was scouted by SM Entertainment, corralled into a group of boy trainees who have far more conventional problems than Kyungsoo would ever have, he didn't think twice before signing on the dotted line.  
  
"Welcome to the life of a trainee," management said, when Kyungsoo handed the papers back. "You'll start lessons tomorrow."  
  
㊊  
  
It'll be full moon soon. Two or three more days. Kyungsoo can feel the itch of it. His mood is antsy and he doesn't want to watch whatever movie Sehun's lined up for the evening, but he knows, from other months, that going to bed at eight will garner Joonmyun's attention.  
  
Jongin is curled up on the couch next to Kyungsoo, trying to make himself as small as possible. In the four years that Kyungsoo's known him, he's gotten bigger and bigger, so Kyungsoo doesn't think it's going to work. 

His elbow keeps brushing Kyungsoo's bare arm. Kyungsoo's stomach twists with every touch. He leans away. Somehow, for some reason, Jongin seems to follow.  
  
"Zombies aren't real," Sehun says, mouth twisting up like a smug pretzel as he surveys Jongin's shrinking attempts. "Stop cowering like a baby and relax."  
  
"They could be real," Jongin says. "We're just one scientific experiment away from an  _army of the undead_."  
  
"The fact that you believe in monsters is one of your best traits," says Baekhyun. "It provides me with limitless amusement. Next you're going to tell me you think vampires are real."  
  
Jongin shakes his head. His hair sticks up in a million directions. Kyungsoo thinks it looks like a mop from  _Fantasia_. "I don't know," Jongin says. "But the supernatural… I think there could be something to it." He stretches, and it reveals a slash of smooth, pretty skin. Kyungsoo's chest tightens, and his mouth waters before he quickly tears his eyes away.  _That's Jongin, not ✮raw steak✮_ , he tells himself, wiping sweaty hands on his thighs.  
  
He swallows down the saliva, and feels shockingly thirteen. Like the first time he saw a girl in a short skirt and wanted to take a bite out of her. Kyungsoo usually doesn't want to eat his band mates. Now is not a good time to start.  
  
"What, like people who can talk to ghosts, or howling werewolves?" Chanyeol throws pretzels at them, and Kyungsoo laughs around the strange clench in his gut. "Like our last concept.  _Awoooooooo~~_!"  
  
"Yeah," Jongin replies, looking at the floor. "Something like that." Sehun snickers and grabs a stray pretzel out of Joonmyun's hair, popping it into his mouth without qualms.  
  
"Sehun," Joonmyun chastises, smiling despite himself. Kyungsoo sighs and closes his eyes. Even then, he can feel Jongin wriggling beside him, trying to get comfortable. Every brush of Jongin's shirt sleeve against Kyungsoo's elbow sends a jolt through Kyungsoo's system,  (✮like one time he can remember from elementary school when he'd stuck a metal chopstick in the electrical socket just because his teacher had told him not to.✮)  
  
He's flashing hot and cold, too. His fever is starting to set in, but he ignores it.  
  
The movie starts.  
  
About five minutes into the film, Jongin is already squeaking. He falls into Kyungsoo, burying his face in Kyungsoo's neck. "Scary," he whispers, and his breath tickles at Kyungsoo's skin.  
  
He's a blanket of a man, but Kyungsoo was already burning up anyway. He tries to edge left, but Jongin is stubbornly attached, like lint to wool.  
  
"It's just a movie," replies Kyungsoo. "Relax." He pats Jongin on the back a couple of times, hoping it's enough to console him. Physical contact, especially around the full moon, is uncomfortable. Jongin in particular likes to touch, and Kyungsoo's throat always goes dry when Jongin's fingertips scrape down his arms or slide across the small of his back.  
  
"You're so warm," Jongin murmurs. "Are you sure you're all right?" Jongin pulls back to examine Kyungsoo's face. Kyungsoo can feel the sweat on his face, and all of his senses are in overdrive. He can hear Jongin's heartbeat loud in his own ears, and the weird hunger starts gnawing at him again, pushing out from him. He swallows it down.  
  
"I'm fine," he replies, looking Jongin in the face. Jongin's eyes widen, and the light from the television makes him look stricken.  
  
"Hyung, your eyes—" Still a whisper, but it is loud in Kyungsoo's ears. Two floors above them, there are two teenage girls fighting. Across the street, a man is breaking up with his girlfriend. He can't turn it off.  
  
"If you're going to flirt instead of watching the movie," Baekhyun says, "can you do it somewhere else?" Mildly irritated. What Kyungsoo can taste in the air, though, is still that contained amusement. The television is too bright for Kyungsoo's eyes, and Baekhyun's emotions get lost in the  _loudness_  of Jongin's.  
  
He frowns again, and then shivers. He's light-headed. He needs to lie down. "I'm going to bed." He stands, wobbling. He quickly steadies himself, trying to make it seem as though he's just lost interest in the movie. "Catch you guys in the morning."  
  
"Should I—" Jongin is about to follow, his legs unfolding and his face tracking Kyungsoo's movements like he's a sunflower. That's the last thing Kyungsoo wants when he's stretched so thin. He can still hear Jongin's accelerated pulse. It's the same as his own. He can smell curiosity and taste something else, and the mark of Jongin's touch still remains.  
  
Kyungsoo shivers again. "No," he says firmly. "I'm just going to sleep." He smiles at Jongin.  
  
"Goodnight," Jongin says, and Kyungsoo doesn't breathe out again until he has closed the door to their shared bedroom.  
  
He's mostly asleep by the time Jongin comes in, tiptoeing to avoid waking Kyungsoo up. Kyungsoo rolls away from him, his back to Jongin's side of the room, and squeezes his eyes shut as the wolf inside of him rattles at the cage he's kept it in for years.  
  
㊊  
  
Kim Jongin is not the sort of roommate Kyungsoo imagined when he signed up for this whole ~idol thing~. (Although saying ✮signed up✮ makes it sound far more frivolous than it had been, Kyungsoo agonizing over whether it was a good idea for a boy who'd been bitten by a  _werewolf_  to attempt a pop career.)  
  
He had maybe imagined someone like Chanyeol, always confident and assured, or like Baekhyun, funny and charming and gregarious.  
  
Jongin is none of those things, at least not completely. He's confident on stage, but shy and moody off, as likely to glower at you as to grin. He's picky and prickly and not very outgoing at all, and Chanyeol, on Kyungsoo's first day as a trainee, tells Kyungsoo not to be offended if Jongin doesn't take to him.  
  
"He's just like that," Chanyeol explains, big hand flat on Kyungsoo's arm. "All… cactus-y."  
  
Kyungsoo doesn't really treat Jongin any special way, so that's why he's surprised when Jongin latches on, like some kind of weird suction cupped barnacle thing. Kyungsoo spent most of his adolescence trying to avoid touch, because his skin is just a few degrees too warm, and because having people so close makes his head fuzzy. Jongin disregards all of Kyungsoo's fairly obvious  _don't touch me_  vibes and constantly throws arms around his shoulders when they're walking, or hugs him from behind when he's in the kitchen making lunch.  
  
Chanyeol and Yixing can be touchy too, with Kyungsoo. But neither of them make Kyungsoo feel like he's seconds from bursting out of his skin, or like there are angry chihuahuas playing fetch in his stomach.  
  
"Jongin likes you  _best_ ," Chanyeol says angrily, weeks later. "What a rip-off."  
  
When they end up sharing a bedroom, Kyungsoo tries to get used to the way Jongin is constantly reaching out for him. He never does. What does happen, though, is that Kyungsoo finds himself able to pick up Jongin's voice first in a crowd, and he always knows when Jongin is near. Jongin's emotions become the ones he can sense the strongest, and he knows when Jongin is angry or sad. Kyungsoo's never lived with anyone before, not like this, and maybe this is normal for werewolves, to attune themselves to the person that shares their immediate space.  
  
Kyungsoo doesn't have anyone to ask about it, but it sounds like enough of a theory to run with.  
  
The problem is, really, that when the full moon comes, Kyungsoo is far too aware of Jongin, and it makes the wolf agitated. Fierce.  
  
Like all of his feelings, Kyungsoo carefully catalogues them and puts them away, losing himself to performances and appearances and fan-signings, and ignoring whatever strangeness results from Jongin's affectionate nature. It works. Sort of.  
  
㊊  
  
He wakes up in the morning sticky with sweat and still feverish. Jongin is shaking him, and his hands feel like fire where they grip Kyungsoo's shoulders. "Hyung, wake up!" It echoes. It's way too loud.  
  
Jongin's presence in the room is overwhelming. It is all Kyungsoo can focus on, in the deluge of sound and smell.

He cracks open his eyes. Jongin glows in his vision, and Kyungsoo, without thinking about it, reaches up and pulls Jongin down into bed with him. Jongin falls on top of him with an  _~oomph~_  before going very still. "Quiet," Kyungsoo says. "You're hurting my ears."  
  
"Hyung, I was only whispering," Jongin says, and Kyungsoo closes his eyes again, because looking at Jongin is uncomfortable. He's too bright. His body is warm on top of Kyungsoo's though, and Kyungsoo must have a fever in earnest now because the warmth feels nice. "Your eyes, hyung—"  
  
"Sleep," Kyungsoo says, and Jongin's breathing is ragged and harsh in his ear. "Quiet and sleep."  
  
Jongin is tense, and Kyungsoo waits to see if Jongin is going to complain or move but he doesn't. His heartbeat is so loud. That smell, the one that Kyungsoo had been unable to figure out last night, is sweet and cloying in the air, mixing with Jongin's natural scent.  
  
Then Jongin melts into him with a sigh, and Kyungsoo falls back asleep, lulled by Jongin's unsteady breaths. Jongin isn't speaking, but Kyungsoo can hear Jongin's voice in his head anyway, repeating Kyungsoo's name over and over again. One of Jongin's hands hesitantly wraps around Kyungsoo's waist, and for the first time in a long time, Kyungsoo does not push him away.  
  
The next time he returns to consciousness, he knows he's in trouble. Jongin is still half on top of him, and Kyungsoo can feel the wolf pressing against his ribs angrily. Somehow, Kyungsoo thinks the wolf is trying to get closer to Jongin. He moves to shove Jongin off, but his clammy hands catch at Jongin's arms instead. "No," Kyungsoo says to himself, frustrated. "No."  
  
He needs to go home. He needs to trap himself in his childhood bedroom because something has gone terribly wrong and he is on the brink of snapping. He can feel the craving for raw steak or maybe  _✩raw lead dancer✩_ , and he can hear every conversation for kilometers.  
  
He peels himself out of Jongin's embrace and puts on clean clothes. Jongin doesn't rouse, and Kyungsoo is thankful. It's late, and he's thankful for that, too. He ventures out into the living room and finds Chanyeol watching television on the couch.  
  
"Everyone else has a schedule today," Chanyeol says, without looking away from his cartoon. "Where are you headed?"  
  
"My parents," he replies. "I'll be back in the morning."  
  
"Everything all right?" Chanyeol turns to look at him. "You look ill."  
  
"Nothing a night with my mom won't cure," Kyungsoo says, and Chanyeol nods. He opens his mouth to say something else, but then changes his mind. Kyungsoo hesitates. "Could you tell Jongin—" Even saying Jongin's name makes Kyungsoo's skin prickle. There isn't much time. He can hear growling in his head that has nothing to do with any arguments being held by the neighbors. "Ah, don't worry about it."  
  
"'Kay," Chanyeol says. "I won't." He's still watching Kyungsoo out of the corner of his eye. "Sure you don't need any help?"  
  
"I'm sure," Kyungsoo reassures with a smile. His teeth feel longer. He breathes in and despite his changed clothes, Kyungsoo still smells like Jongin.  
  
He takes a taxi because his knees are too close to buckling for the subway. He lets himself drown in the voices as he rides down the highway, slumped in the backseat, and lets Jongin and the strange morning fade away from the forefront of his mind.  
  
He gets to his parents' house before dark, and lets himself in. His dad is in the kitchen, laptop open as he checks the news. He looks up at Kyungsoo's footsteps, and his expression grows alarmed as he takes in Kyungsoo's appearance.  
  
"Going upstairs," Kyungsoo croaks. "It's a bad month."  _It's a bad month_  is code for  _I'm not safe_  in the Do household. They had invented that after the second time Kyungsoo had successfully skipped the change. It was for the months he wouldn't be able to control it. This, apparently, is one of those months.  
  
"I'll lock you in," his dad says, and he follows Kyungsoo up the stairs.  
  
Collapsing into his bed, Kyungsoo writhes as his senses overload. "Quickly," he tells his father, as he hears his mother's voice call in askance from the bedroom.  
  
"See you in the morning," says his father, and then the deadbolt slides into place as Kyungsoo fades from consciousness.  
  
The next time Kyungsoo awakens, he is naked in a pile of shredded sheets. There are gouges in the walls, and his desk has been shattered to smithereens. Kyungsoo remembers nothing, as usual, and  _damn_  his skin feels dry.  
  
Kyungsoo had become the wolf last night. The change had taken him so fiercely he'd been unable to control it, the wolf far too close to the surface for him to hold in.  
  
It hasn't happened like that, for Kyungsoo, since the first time. He thinks about what was different, this time, from every other time, and realizes…  
  
It all, he decides, has something to do with Jongin. Jongin's touch brings the wolf up and out from where Kyungsoo had long since buried him. Kyungsoo had almost given up his secret, and it had been too close of a call.  
  
He imagines the way everyone would look at him, if they knew, and it makes him resolved to prevent it.

It's easy enough to fix, too. Kyungsoo just has to touch Jongin less. Make Jongin touch him less. Haha. Easy.

Kyungsoo's whole body unexpectedly tightens up at the thought, and nausea hits him heavy. He bites his lower lip in determination.  
  
Distance. He can do that. He's done it all of his life.  
  
 _But_ , a sneaky part of him says,  _not from Jongin._  
  
Kyungsoo stabs that part of him repeatedly with an imaginary fork. It's not as reassuring as he would have liked.  
  
㊊  
  
He returns in midmorning to the dorms, about an hour before they have to leave for practice.  
  
"You look a hundred times better," Chanyeol pronounces, and Jongin's eyes rake across Kyungsoo's face and body like he doesn't believe Kyungsoo is well again. He doesn't mention anything about yesterday, and Kyungsoo thinks he picks up embarrassment and confusion from Jongin.  
  
That's good, because an embarrassed Jongin is not a talkative Jongin.  It's actually the opposite, and Jongin curls up into himself like a ✩frightened hedgehog✩. It takes forever, then, to coax him back out of his shame ball.  
  
Still, Jongin sits next to him in the van, and takes every opportunity to touch touch touch until Kyungsoo thinks he might go nuts from it. He tries to put space between them, but the van is cramped and it's a relief to pile out at SM.  
  
His skin tingles. Even though the full moon is over, his senses haven't calmed. At least not where Jongin is concerned. Jongin's every movement is still magnified in Kyungsoo's mind, like he's still in the throes of the fever.  
  
Yixing pulls him away, lacing their fingers together, and Kyungsoo follows without much thought, since they're headed to the same place. Jongin glares at him balefully as he and Yixing take the elevator up first. Yixing just grins triumphantly and waves.  
  
"What are you doing?" Kyungsoo asks, letting Yixing rub his thumb up and down Kyungsoo's.  
  
"Playing a game," Yixing says. "Don't worry about it, Kyungsoo~"  
  
When they're all together again, Yixing makes a big show of letting go of Kyungsoo's hand, like it physically pains him. Kyungsoo doesn't react, because he's pretty sure Yixing does most things to  _get_  a reaction, so Kyungsoo thwarts him as often as possible.  
  
Jongin hovers in the practice room, too, and Kyungsoo's going to start twitching like Chanyeol if Jongin keeps sneaking up on him like this. Plus, there's the fact that Kyungsoo needs to keep away from Jongin, because the wolf might be tired today, but it won't be tired tomorrow.  
  
They practice for hours, stopping around three for lunch. Kyungsoo towels off his face. His shirt is sticky and totally gross. His whole body aches from his transformation last night, and the dancing has not improved the situation.  
  
"I'm glad you're feeling better." Jongin curls his arms around Kyungsoo from behind, setting his chin on Kyungsoo's shoulder. Kyungsoo's heart rattles in his chest like some horrible death-maraca keeping the beat to  _la cucaracha_. "Can we eat lunch together?"  
  
Jongin's body had felt—Well, Kyungsoo had made a mistake, and maybe pulling Jongin on top of him had made his body remember Jongin in a way it shouldn't.  
  
Kyungsoo fists his hand in Jongin's hair and pulls him off. "Too clingy," he says, and Jongin looks at him, lost. "It's embarrassing." He doesn't mention the way his blood sings when Jongin drapes himself across Kyungsoo's shoulders. Kyungsoo knows it's the  _other him_  that makes it like that.  
  
"But I'm cold," Jongin says. "And you're warm."  
  
"I said  _stop_ ," Kyungsoo hisses, sharply, too sharply, and Jongin jerks back like he's been shot.  
  
"Sorry," Jongin says, miserable, confused, and Kyungsoo, feeling like he's kicked a puppy, knows he should apologize. Only his heart is still going far too fast. And even though he can smell Jongin's anxiety, it's not a stronger odor than his own. "I'll just…"  
  
Jongin's arms slip from around him, and Kyungsoo reflexively starts to pull him back, before he remembers that  _no_ , he wants Jongin to let him go,  _needs him to_. "Jongin…"  
  
That probably, Kyungsoo thinks, as Jongin trudges away, now a castigated puppy, could have gone better.  
  
㊊  
  
Kyungsoo sits by himself at lunch, when they finally get to the cafeteria, until Yixing slides down on the bench across from him, boney hip banging into Kyungsoo's.  
  
"What was all that downstairs?" he asks, and Kyungsoo furrows his brow. His eyes betray him, the traitorous bastards, and immediately flit over to Jongin. Jongin is pouting over his rice, and Kyungsoo admires the strong slope of his shoulders, and the way his back slims downward to narrow hips.  
  
His stomach hurts. He shoves more rice into his mouth, which might seem counterintuitive but he prefers a lead-like heaviness to  _butterflies_.  
  
"He needs to stop that…koala stuff," Kyungsoo says, when he's finished his bite. "It's inappropriate."  
  
"We all know you like your space, but you don't snap at Chanyeol for it. Or me." Yixing taps his chin. "Baekhyun slapped your ass twice this morning and you never even noticed."  
  
"That's different," Kyungsoo says. Holding Yixing's hand doesn't make him so… well…  _Hungry_. "It's not—"  
  
"Don't be mean to Jongin just because you can't control your boner," Yixing says. "He's taking it seriously. Look at him pout." Yixing wags his finger as Kyungsoo sneaks a glance at Jongin. Kyungsoo is always stealing Jongin's smile, somehow. "You act like you've never been attracted to someone before."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Attracted? Kyungsoo had thankfully gotten to skip all that, back when all his classmates were tripping over themselves to talk to girls and getting distracted from class. He'd been extra thankful when he'd started with SM for whatever it was about being a werewolf that kept him immune from the disease that had Joonmyun staring longingly at Luna across the room during dinner and Yixing writing off-tune ballads about some girlfriend he'd left in China. "I don't have time for attraction. Jongin is just too…"  
  
"You can say whatever you want, Kyungsoo, but you turn all red when he touches you—"  
  
"Out of irritation," says Kyungsoo, "because he's old enough that he shouldn't need that constant attention!"  
  
"And you always look for him first when you enter a room." That's what Jongin does, not Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo's wolf-senses just seem especially attuned to Jongin's voice. That's all. He can't tell that to Yixing though.  
  
"I didn't really ask for your opinion." Yixing laughs in his face. Yixing usually only laughs like that at Yifan, so Kyungsoo feels extra persecuted, right now. He sets down his spoon.  
  
"You never ask for anyone's opinion," Yixing says. "Doesn't mean I'm not going to have one."  
  
"Keep it to yourself, then."  
  
"Jongin and I have to perform today. Don't put him in ~a mood~." Yixing picks up his tray and himself. "I'm going to eat lunch with Lu Han, since you're so grumpy."  
  
" _Bye, then,_ " Kyungsoo says, food now unappetizing. He peeks at Jongin again. Jongin's lips are dry, and there's the slightest hint of stubble along the line of his jaw.  
  
The uncomfortable stomach clenching. The anxiousness. The impulses he has that make Jongin so appealing when Kyungsoo lets his guard down.  
  
He wants to sit close enough to Jongin that Jongin will lean on him.  
  
Now that Yixing has mentioned it, Kyungsoo can't dismiss the word  _attraction_ , and it resonates in his thoughts for the rest of the day.  
  
㊊  
  
Kyungsoo has never, previously, tried to define attraction. Those sorts of feelings are for other people. People who aren't, in weaker moments, tempted to rip other people apart with their teeth and eat them.  
  
People who aren't, sorta, well,  _not-people_  like Kyungsoo is  _not-people_ , thanks to an 'accident' he can barely remember when he hadn't even started school.  
  
Research is more Chanyeol's thing than Kyungsoo's, but the internet opens before him with hundreds of theories and ideas and myths, none of which ring completely true, but all of which offer tiny slivers of insight. In the end, he finds his best tips on the home-page of some girls' dating forum,  _is he mister right?! ♡ ♡ ♡_ , and Kyungsoo vows to take the advice more seriously than he takes any of Yixing's.  
  
However, shutting his eyes and  _thinking_  about Jongin doesn't make Kyungsoo weak in the knees. Instead, it makes him kind of want to go running off into the woods and howl at the moon until all the hunger goes away. Or drink. That hadn't been one of the multiple choice options on the interactive quiz, and it certainly hadn't been mentioned in his health class textbook. ((The same one he'd scoured for puberty tips, oh-so-long ago.))  
  
㊊  
  
Jongin's staunch refusal to touch Kyungsoo, along with all the petulant cold-shouldering that entails, for the rest of that day, and the following one… At first, it's a relief. It is exactly what he wanted, and he is pleasantly surprised to have gotten it for once.  
  
But then it starts to be weird. Kind of lonely. Kyungsoo, with no intention to do so, moves in Jongin's direction without effort, missing the way Jongin plucks at his shirt for attention or the way his head falls into the crook of Kyungsoo's neck for comfort when he's exhausted. He sees Jongin drape himself across Chanyeol and Sehun and Joonmyun and his stomach rebels, punching at the walls of his abdomen. His blood runs hot, too, and his body is screaming at him like it needs Jongin's constant attention almost as much as Jongin had needed Kyungsoo's.  
  
Naturally, Kyungsoo ignores it. It's a simple thing, ignoring his body and listening to his mind. He did it all through school and all through his trainee period—that's how he learned, after all, to control the wolf when the moon rose high and full.  
  
Then,  _of course_ , things get more complicated. Because, you know,  _being a werewolf under the threat of transformation once a month_  isn't agonizing enough, Kyungsoo has to start getting weird headaches at inopportune times. They are way worse than the kind he gets from strong smells or loud noises. He has learned to tune those out when he needs to, anyway.  
  
No, these headaches, he realizes, are caused by flashes of thoughts that aren't his own flickering into his head. He tries to fight them off, to shut them out, but that just makes his headaches worse. It's useless, and the thoughts always make their way in, anyway, strong and crisp and so very  _loud._  
  
It only takes him a couple of days  (longer than it should have, really) to realize the thoughts are Jongin's, stray ideas and sad musings and emo teenager thoughts that aren't so different from the monologues of a drama character.  
  
 _If you didn't want to be touched,_  Jongin thinks, and it rings clear in Kyungsoo's head, as clear as the music through his earpiece when they perform on stage,  _then why didn't you say so earlier?_  
  
"I did," Kyungsoo says with frustration, before he remembers he's sitting in the living room with Joonmyun, supposedly reading a book. Joonmyun looks at him over the edge of his Sexy Golfer's Digest magazine.  
  
"If you're going to talk to yourself," Joonmyun says, "can you do it in your room?"  
  
Kyungsoo closes his book and tries to figure out how Jongin makes him uncomfortable and embarrassed when they're not even in the ✮same room✮.  
  
It can't possibly be attraction, he decides.  **It just can't be.**  
  
㊊  
  
Jongin's thoughts aren't interesting. Or, well, to be fair, ~sometimes~ they are, especially when he's thinking uncharitable thoughts about how Baekhyun scratches his balls in public.  
  
Mostly, though, Jongin's thoughts are like wading into a murky, muddy puddle and finding out that it is actually quicksand. He overthinks  _everything_ , from what pair of underwear he's going to wear to whether his favorite sweats actually look good on him or if he's just deluding himself, to whether it's a good skin day or a bad skin day, to the broken nail on his thumb. Kyungsoo feels trapped under the influx of all of these thoughts.  
  
It only gets worse when Jongin sees Kyungsoo. The menial thoughts disappear, to be replaced by this giant chasm of hurt and want and petty anger and some other things, too, that Kyungsoo can't make heads or tails of. He does, however, feel an answering song inside of himself, which doesn't make any sense because he has always found Jongin slightly clingy, even if he is adorable. He has never longed for, needed, craved Jongin's touch and Jongin's laugh and Jongin's pretty,  _pretty_  smile.  
  
Or, well, mostly he hasn't, except when…  
  
It comes to him, when he and Jongin are shoved together into the van and the wolf inside of Kyungsoo howls in inaudible triumph from its confines in Kyungsoo's chest. It clicks into place, and Kyungsoo, scarily, dreadfully, comes up with a horrible theory that is just crazy enough to be true.  
  
"It's the wolf that wants him," Kyungsoo mumbles to himself, when they all climb out of the van, Kyungsoo waiting until last.  
  
"Still talking to yourself, I see," Joonmyun says, and Kyungsoo feels a slow simmer of embarrassment. "How cute, Kyungsoo-yah."  
  
"I'm not cute," Kyungsoo says, and passes Joonmyun to enter the building, pretending not to hear the screaming fans or Joonmyun's good-natured chuckle.  
  
㊊  
  
Kyungsoo slowly comes to terms with his revelation, and that focus helps him to tune Jongin's thoughts out, for the most part. It's an invasion of privacy, and Kyungsoo feels extremely uncomfortable about it.  
  
But though he tries to keep from getting too close to Jongin, they live together, and share a room, and no amount of effort can spare them the occasional brush of skin or the long lingering looks they both can't help but steal.  
  
Kyungsoo doesn't get this whole ~attraction~ thing. It is difficult and complicated and he wants to go back to being one of the fortunate few spared this itch that settles to stay at the base of his spine. The wolf feels too close to the surface, too, and he is nervous every time he gets on stage. That  _this_  will be the time he lashes out and eats a prepubescent girl.  
  
When he goes to bed at night, he thinks he hears a pining  _hyung_  in Jongin's voice buzzing around in his head, but it is probably his imagination.  
  
㊊  
  
On page 78 of Kyungsoo's 1st year biology textbook, in high school, there had been a brief mention of animal mating habits: a throwaway chart meant to take up space because neither the teacher nor the students really cared about the reproductive rituals of flamingos. There had been, though, a section on wolves, and Kyungsoo recalls seeing, with some kind of sinking feeling of foreboding, that wolves mate for life.  
  
Kyungsoo is not a wolf, though. He is some hybrid creature caught between boy—man, between man and wolf, with no guide and no teacher to tell him what it means that he can hear Jongin in his head, and that not being able to touch Jongin just makes his urge to slam him into hard surfaces and take a bite out of him even more overwhelming.  
  
He tries searching the internet, because that has worked before, but all he finds are a lot of Twilight fansites and European myths from the 1800s. Those don't do him any good, and he's left right where he started, staring at Jongin from across the room and feeling like he's going to rip out of his own skin and turn into a werewolf in the middle of daylight.  
  
"That look is really intense," says Jongdae, interrupting Kyungsoo's thoughts. "I'm not sure you can incinerate someone's clothes with just your eyes." Jongdae gives a longing look at the posters of Soshi that Baekhyun has carefully put up in the living room. ✮ Chanyeol had been heckling him the entire time about how crooked they were, until Joonmyun had pressed a hand to his neck to settle him down.✮ Kyungsoo wonders, briefly, if Jongdae has tried the whole clothes-incinerating thing and is speaking from personal experience.  
  
"I'm not… That's not what I—" Kyungsoo shuts his mouth, because Jongdae thinking Kyungsoo wants Jongin  _naked_  is somewhat, ✮~marginally~✮, better than the truth, which is that he wants to shove Jongin into the refrigerator and—  
  
There's a flash of someone else's thoughts, and then it's Kyungsoo's own again, only now, instead of biting down into Jongin and tearing away a chunk of him, he imagines licking his way down Jongin's pretty square jaw. Oh dear.  
  
"Okay," Jongdae says. "Sure. Whatever. But hey, if you decide to have your way with him in the kitchen, I'm not so sure he'd mind."  
  
"Have my way with him?" Kyungsoo asks. He vaguely knows what it means, from talk in the locker room back when he'd swum for his high school team. Something to do with sex, Kyungsoo had imagined then, but the whole thing had never interested him much.  
  
Now, though, he wishes he'd paid more attention. He can't figure out if he's putting the clues together correctly. 

All he knows is that Jongin, by accident and not design, is driving him up a wall, across the ceiling, and down the opposite side, and when Jongin bends over, to retrieve a pan for ramen from underneath the sink, Kyungsoo's pants feel uncomfortably tight.  
  
"Just please spare the kitchen table," Jongdae says. "We all eat there."  
  
㊊  
  
Things stumble, fall, come crashing to an inevitable conversation in the hallway outside the bathroom, when Kyungsoo is still wet from the shower. He can feel the water dripping from his thick hair and sluicing down his back, and Jongin's eyes are wide, pupils blown out as he stops and just  _looks._  
  
"We need to talk," says Kyungsoo, shifting and reaching down to tighten his towel as that awkward and unexpected heavy feeling surges up his thighs. "About the past couple of weeks."  
  
"You told me not to touch you," Jongin says. "So I didn't." He crosses his arms and pouts. "So what's there to talk about." His lower lip juts out in an infantile show of stubbornness, and Kyungsoo is supposed to find it annoying. Not endearing. Not… appetizing.  
  
Kyungsoo can't stand it. It's like Jongin has crawled under his skin and stayed there, traveling with Kyungsoo wherever he goes and present even when Kyungsoo is all alone. "You're not a child," he says firmly, careful not to raise his voice. "So stop acting like one."  
  
Jongin reaches out and grabs his arm, slipping on the slick skin. "Stop… trying to push me away. It's okay if you don't… but I thought we were… at least we're friends, right? So, please don't…" Jongin scowls now, and Kyungsoo takes a deep breath.  
  
There's a chill in the room, thanks to his wet skin, but Kyungsoo is burning hot.  
  
"Of course we're friends, Jongin-ah." Soft, gentle. It's not the way Kyungsoo speaks, by default, but it is the way he has taught himself to speak, ever since middle school when he'd snapped and snarled at their class rep and the other boy had been afraid to speak to him for three weeks.  
  
He feels stretched thin, though. He doesn't look up at Jongin, whose hand still grips his arm, too tight. Kyungsoo could easily break that hold, but he doesn't want to hurt Jongin. He's not sure he could, since that other part of him that he reins in most days has  _chosen_  Jongin somehow.  
  
"The things I want from you are not childish," Jongin murmurs, quietly. A normal person wouldn't have heard, but Kyungsoo is not normal. It's an explosion in his ears, and it surprises Kyungsoo enough that he looks up and into Jongin's eyes. The flashes of Jongin's thoughts come to him unbidden, and Kyungsoo can't shut off his mind quickly enough to avoid seeing a few.  
  
 _Kyungsoo, pushing Jongin into the counter and—_  
  
 _Kyungsoo, biting Jongin's lower lip as one of his hands slides up Jongin's shirt—_  
  
 _Kyungsoo, licking and biting his way down the flat plane of Jongin's stomach and--_  
  
Jongin's eyes are bright. The scent radiating from Jongin is something he has smelled before, but he had never realized it was desire. He had never  _understood_  that the attention that Jongin wanted from him was anything other than… well, brotherly.  
  
He wonders if Jongin sometimes looks at Kyungsoo's cheeks or thighs and wants to take a bite, or if attraction works differently for him.  
  
"Jongin," Kyungsoo says, "you don't know what you're asking for."  
  
"I know…" Jongin hesitates. "I know there's something… different about you." Jongin has grabbed two giant handfuls of his own sweatshirt. Mixing with the desire, Kyungsoo smells determination. He can taste it in the back of his mouth. He wants to taste it in the back of Jongin's. "The fevers every month. The way sometimes… your eyes… do this thing, where they flash gold. I know you're…"  
  
"I'm…?" Kyungsoo steps closer. He shouldn't. He should move away from Jongin. He should leave Jongin here in the hallway and go lock himself in the room to change. He should. Because he and Jongin are in the same band. Because Kyungsoo doesn't know much about being a werewolf or about sexual attraction, and because he doesn't know if the way Jongin makes him want to lose control is good or bad.  
  
But it is like he cannot help himself. Jongin is so warm and Kyungsoo can hear every beat of his heart and he would like to hear it beat faster. He would like to feel Jongin's heat beneath his wandering palms.  
  
Jongin licks his lips, and Kyungsoo can see them quiver, even though it's minute. "Different," Jongin settles on, and Kyungsoo, involuntarily, takes another step closer.  
  
Jongin is so tall, but it is a simple enough task to tug him down by the neck of his sweatshirt. "Aren't you afraid?" He says the words softly, almost against Jongin's lips. He slams his mind shut when Jongin's thoughts start to race.  
  
"No," Jongin says. "How could I be afraid of you, hyung?"  
  
Kyungsoo hasn't felt this wild since he was sixteen. He hasn't felt this close to snapping. "You should be, maybe," he says, and, finally,  _finally_ , he pulls Jongin the rest of the way down.  
  
Jongin's mouth is soft, and wet from nervous licks and anxious biting. It isn't unpleasant. It is the polar opposite of unpleasant, and now Kyungsoo can see what all the fuss is about.  
  
Jongin whines against Kyungsoo's lips, hands clutching at Kyungsoo's bare back, and Kyungsoo gasps when his nails dig in.  
  
"Sorry," Jongin mumbles, and Kyungsoo laughs, before he licks at the corners of Jongin's mouth and tastes the Calpis he had been drinking at rehearsal. "Sorry."  
  
"That's all right," Kyungsoo says, hearing Lu Han get up from the sofa. He breaks apart after one last kiss, and steps back. Jongin looks ruffled and suspicious and smells like sweat from rehearsal and need, and Kyungsoo bets his own body is flush all the way down to where it disappears into the towel. "I think I might like it a little rough."  
  
Jongin chokes back a moan and Kyungsoo walks into their room, leaving the door unlocked for when Jongin gets out of the shower.  
  
㊊  
  
Kissing is nice, but in the end, all it does is wake up all of these ~other~ things.  
  
He is constantly reminding himself that Jongin is not like a sweater or a cell phone. He doesn't belong to Kyungsoo now, just because Kyungsoo has decided that Jongin  _should_  belong to him. Kyungsoo might have had little interest in relationships in high school, but he did, at least, learn that from the failed romances of his peers.  
  
Chanyeol reaches out and ruffles Jongin's hair after Jongin shows him a piece of choreo during practice, and Jongin smiles back at him. Kyungsoo growls in the back of his throat, because he wants to rip Chanyeol's hand off and feed it to wild, rabid woodland creatures.  
  
"So," Baekhyun says, and Kyungsoo turns to see Baekhyun sitting next to him, giving him the side-eye. "Did you just… growl?"  
  
"No," Kyungsoo says, smiling sweetly. "Why would I do that?"  
  
"Don't tell me I owe Yixing money over this." Baekhyun adjusts his baseball hat, tilting it more to the left as Kyungsoo leans back against the mirrors. "Come on, Kyungsoo-yah, the whole Jongin thing was supposed to be one-sided!"  
  
"Yixing told me it was obvious that I was…" Kyungsoo tries out the word "~attracted~ to Jongin."  
  
"Sometimes, you look like you want to rip him to pieces and then eat his organs like you're Hannibal Lector," Baekhyun says. "I don't know if that's exactly the same thing."  
  
Sometimes, Kyungsoo's thoughts follow a similar line to Baekhyun's. The wolf inside him is unpredictable, and the moon is waxing again, so with every day the smells and sounds and tactile sensations get stronger. Jongin smells and tastes and sounds very nice.  
  
But then Jongin comes closer, and he just wants to lick at his neck and scratch his teeth down the column of Jongin's throat until Jongin's breathing is harsh and quick and loud enough to drown out everything happening outside their room.  
  
㊊  
  
"I like you," says Jongin, three days before the moon is set to be full. Kyungsoo is already feverish, mouth dry and the need for something to tear apart far too close to the surface again.  
  
"Why?" Kyungsoo asks, and his voice is jarring even to his own ears. Jongin's eyes widen.  
  
"Hyung, are you okay?" His fingers draw absent patterns on Kyungsoo's soft stomach. "Your eyes have gone gold again."  
  
"I'm fine," Kyungsoo says.  
  
"Would it help if…" Jongin shifts, so he's lying on top of Kyungsoo, trapping him on the bed under Jongin's heat. "Last time, you went back to sleep when I lied down on you like this."  
  
"Last time…" Kyungsoo remembers that. Jongin coming to wake him up and Kyungsoo pulling him down, letting Jongin lull him to sleep. "Yes," Kyungsoo says. "You make it worse, but then you make it better." That's confusing, and Kyungsoo can't take that apart and figure it out right now.  
  
Jongin, just as he had been before, is more overpowering than everything else, until there is only them. Kyungsoo is extremely aware of every place they touch, which is, he realizes, almost everywhere.  
  
Breath stutters against his neck. It tickles. Kyungsoo shifts away from it. When he does, his thigh moves between Jongin's legs.  
  
"Sorry!" Jongin squeaks, pushing up with his arms to try and lift his body up from Kyungsoo's. "Sorry, it's just—"

Kyungsoo is too hazy to be freaked out. He knows what an erection is, even if he's never exactly felt one pressing against him. "Don't worry," he says. He tries to keep his voice even, despite the way his chest feels like it is being torn open by  _other Kyungsoo_. "It's okay."  
  
Jongin buries his face in Kyungsoo's shoulder, and Kyungsoo slides his hand down Jongin's back. Jongin whines, and Kyungsoo can feel the pebbled texture of his skin in the wake of his hands. It feels nice, it feels good. It is more than good.  
  
He can hear Jongin:  _oh no oh no he's going to push me off he's going to kick me out--_  
  
…and in response he hooks one of his legs around both of Jongin's and pulls him close again, pressing them together completely. Jongin's anxiousness and want smells delicious. Better still, everywhere Kyungsoo has touched him is tinted with a little of himself, and that appeals to him more than he could have ever imagined.  
  
"Why?" he asks again, and Jongin kisses at his neck, at his jaw. "Why do you like me?"  
  
Jongin's mind is a jumble. Kyungsoo tries not to look, but it's too close to the full moon. His control is limited.  
  
In Jongin's thoughts, he finds his own smile, and the memory of Kyungsoo pushing Jongin's hair out of his eyes, and of Kyungsoo leaning across the table to ask Jongin if he's still hungry. There's the time Kyungsoo sat next to Jongin for hours and talked to him, when he was hurt, and the time he'd caught Jongin crying and had never told anyone at all.  
  
"I dunno," is what Jongin says, and, unconsciously, presses his hip into Kyungsoo's…  _ah_ , Kyungsoo hadn't noticed he was hard, too, but he is, and he bites his lower lip to hold in the groan. "Why does anyone like anyone?"  
  
"Pheromones," Kyungsoo says, pushing his hips up, wanting that feeling again, that slow rush of pleasure. "Apparently it's science." That had been on page 84 of that Biology textbook. And sure, Kyungsoo had hated reading but he'd hated failing tests even more.  
  
"Science?" Jongin, daring, slips a hand up Kyungsoo's shirt, rough fingers cool against his smooth skin. "You're so hot."  
  
"What?" Kyungsoo swallows. He's panting, kind of, like he needs something that he doesn't have, and Jongin's ✮ ✮adventuring hands✮ ✮ are not helping sort out anything. Still, Kyungsoo does not ask him to stop. He cannot.  
  
"Your skin," Jongin says. "It's so hot. Like you're burning." Jongin bites at his neck then, not hard, only teasing, but it sends Kyungsoo reeling. He can't stop his nails from digging in, or his hips from grinding up.  
  
"Stop," Kyungsoo says, and Jongin does, hands retreating quickly and weight lifting. "No, don't go away, just don't—" He pulls down, until Jongin is firmly nestled against him again. "The biting. Don't…"  
  
"You don't like that?" Jongin is anxious again, all of his courage spent and used up, and that familiar refrain leaks out of his thoughts to catch Kyungsoo's attention.  _What did I do wrong why doesn't he like it is he going to make me leave—_  
  
"I think… I think I like it," Kyungsoo says. "My head is foggy. I can't figure anything out right now. I don't want to hurt you."  
  
"Does it have to do with what makes you... well, you know?" Jongin is careful with the word. Kyungsoo is so feverish now that he can only focus on the way Jongin's emotions taste in the air between them.  
  
"Yes," Kyungsoo admits.  
  
"Oh," Jongin says. "So it's okay if I…"  
  
"Stay," Kyungsoo says. "Like this."  
  
"All right," Jongin replies, cautiously nestling his face back into Kyungsoo's neck. His dick is still hot and hard against Kyungsoo's thigh, but he isn't making any move to do anything about it. Kyungsoo is relieved, because even Jongin's lips at his throat are something dangerous and overwhelming. Inside of him, the wolf howls.  
  
"Jongin," Kyungsoo says, letting himself sleep into the delirium between the fever and sleep, "I like you too."  
  
Jongin sighs, and the vibrant  _badump badump badump_  of his heart lures Kyungsoo into the shadows of sleep.  
  
㊊  
  
The transformation is especially harsh. Kyungsoo, when he comes to, discovers he has fractured the hinges on his bedroom door.  
  
"Perhaps," his mother says delicately, over breakfast, "you're stressed out about something?"  
  
"Um," Kyungsoo says, and then fills his mouth with rice so he doesn't have to respond with all sorts of complicated things.  
  
㊊  
  
The day after the full moon, Kyungsoo is drained. He feels lethargic and winded and the slightest touches seem to raise his hackles, even Jongin's touches. Especially Jongin's.  
  
Jongin seems to notice, and refrains from touching. He doesn't even look too put out about it, which has Kyungsoo on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop.  
  
"Stop making that face," Chanyeol says. "It's very… constipated."  
  
"You know he's been feeling ill," Joonmyun chides, even though he's smiling. Kyungsoo glares at them both.  
  
"I think you mean ~love sick~" Baekhyun coos from the kitchen, without even looking out, and Kyungsoo, horror of all horrors, starts to blush.  
  
"I wish Yixing were here," Chanyeol says. "He would treasure this moment. You're so cute."  
  
"No," Kyungsoo says. "Not!! Cute!!"  
  
"You're right," Chanyeol says, hands stretching out like he's going to pick Kyungsoo up. "And so tall, too."

Kyungsoo considers the angle between his foot and Chanyeol's balls. He probably wouldn't get a direct hit, and he's already so tired.  
  
"Just go easy on Jongin," Joonmyun says, some warning in his voice. "You're confusing him."  
  
 _It's only fair,_  Kyungsoo thinks, recalling how simple his life was before he'd started  _feeling_  things, but instead he smiles. "I'll work on it."  
  
㊊  
  
They go to a fan-signing in Ulsan, and when they get there, the staff is already bustling around. Fans, lots and lots of fans, are lined up to meet them. It's still as exciting as it was the first time. Kyungsoo's senses are overloaded with the loud noises and vivid smells.  
  
He sits between Baekhyun and Chanyeol, caught between their playful bickering, and it distracts him from Jongin, on the other side of Chanyeol, who keeps trying to catch Kyungsoo's attention with tiny smiles and nervous lip licking.  
  
Kyungsoo is definitely not distracted by that. Definitely,  _definitely_  not.  
  
When everything winds down, Kyungsoo stands up and walks to the edge of the platform, taking the chance to have a moment by himself to recuperate from all the sensory input.  
  
"You're doing well as an idol," says a familiar voice, and Kyungsoo looks up at the man next to him and blinks. He's wearing a staff badge, but also a suit. He's holding an expensive phone and he smells…  _off_  to Kyungsoo. Different than normal people smell, but not sick. Just… different. Weird. Almost like… almost like Kyungsoo does. And his face tugs at Kyungsoo's memory. "I knew you would."  
  
"I know you," Kyungsoo says, and the man smirks.  
  
"Of course you do," he says. "I'm the one who scouted you, after all."  
  
Yes, Kyungsoo remembers that. Remembers taking the card from this man's hand and tucking it into the pocket of his navy blue uniform pants. "Why?"  
  
The man smiles. "Because it's easier to be an idol with increased stamina. Sharper sight. Better hearing. Isn't it, Do Kyungsoo?"  
  
"Too bad about all the drawbacks," Kyungsoo says, and the man laughs. Kyungsoo wants to laugh with him, but then he remembers that it isn't funny that sometimes he still wants to ✮eat people✮ and that now during the full moon something about Jongin makes the wolf inside of him impossible to hold in.  
  
"Oh, that's just because you haven't mated," the man says. Kyungsoo looks up at him, alarmed. "You're at the age where your werewolf hormones are acting up. Think of it like a second puberty!"  
  
"Because I so enjoyed the first one," says Kyungsoo, and the man smirks.  
  
"Like the first one wasn't easier for you than it was for, say, your buddy Park Chanyeol over there." Kyungsoo looks at Chanyeol, whose height had practically doubled and whose voice had dropped and who had suffered through embarrassing erections every time Joonmyun had breathed in his general direction for about six months. "So don't complain."  
  
"You have to admit this is slightly more dangerous." Kyungsoo stretches out his hand. It's cramped from signing album after album, photo card after photo card. He had thought he might not be able to let the sharpie go. "The eating people thing."  
  
"You don't actually want to eat him," the man says. "Your…  _friend_  over there, I mean."  
  
Kyungsoo, like magic, tunes into the conversations buzzing at the other end of the platform. He can hear Jongin first, of course, whispering to Yixing.  _"I think he's mad at me again,"_  Jongin says, and Yixing scoffs.  _"No he's not, Jongin. He's probably just freaking out. I'll talk to him if you want." "No, oh my gosh, no,"_  Jongin replies. Kyungsoo rolls his eyes.  
  
"How would you know," Kyungsoo says, and the man looks at him.  
  
"You've started marking him," the man says, "as your mate. He smells like you. No other werewolf can touch him now."  
  
"What does that mean?" Kyungsoo stares at the man intently.  
  
"It means," the man says, "that eventually, you'll claim him, and then everything will settle down again."  
  
"How do I—"  
  
"Surely," the man says, his expensive shoes clacking on the platform as he walks away, "you read your health textbook in middle school."  
  
㊊  
  
"I'm not supposed to say anything," Yixing says, sitting next to Kyungsoo on the floor of the dance studio. M has been practicing their separate choreography, and Kyungsoo has a solo vocal rehearsal in twenty minutes.  
  
"So, naturally, here you are, about to tell me." Kyungsoo shifts, and frowns as his jeans dig into his stomach.  
  
"Jongin doesn't think you like him as much as he likes you." Yixing squints at Kyungsoo. "But we both know you do."  
  
"We both know that," Kyungsoo replies woodenly. "Okay."  
  
"You need to… ah… show? Jongin that you like him."  
  
"Is this actual advice, or are you trying to convince me to do something embarrassing," Kyungsoo asks, and Yixing laughs, before rubbing at his probably sore thighs. "Because I wouldn't put it past you."  
  
"Actual advice," Yixing says. "You look like you need actual advice."  
  
"I don't," Kyungsoo says. "We are in the middle of preparing for our comeback. We have to focus."  
  
"If you didn't need advice," Yixing says, "you really wouldn't keep dodging Jongin when he reaches out for you."  
  
Kyungsoo winces. He isn't surprised that's being misinterpreted. But when Jongin tries to touch him, Kyungsoo kind of… well, wants to do things. Things he hasn't particularly wanted to do before. It's unnecessary and upsetting. "It's better than the alternative."  
  
"And what's the alternative?" Yixing teases, nudging Kyungsoo with his shoulder.  
  
Pushing him down, crawling on top of him, and biting down into his shoulder until Kyungsoo can see the shape of his own teeth in Jongin's skin.  
  
Or something.  
  
"Uh," Kyungsoo says, blinking, and Yixing laughs again, loud enough to grab Yifan's attention.  
  
"Stop fucking around," Yifan says, gesturing to everyone else, still dancing.  
  
"Well, the least coordinated of us beckons me back to practice," Yixing says. "Think about my advice."  
  
"Fine, fine," Kyungsoo says, standing up with Yixing so he can leave these guys to their rehearsal. "I will."  
  
㊊  
  
His opportunity comes three days later, when Jongin loses the rock-paper-scissor battle for the shower ✮spectacularly✮ and has to go last. "So much for the King of Games," Chanyeol says snidely before heading first into the shower.  
  
By the time it's Kyungsoo's turn, the water is already cold, and he feels almost sorry for Jongin, who sweats too much and is sitting like a forlorn kitten on the couch as a clean and flowery-scented Sehun whips his ass at Grand Theft Auto.  
  
He gets out of the shower and dries his hair, taking time to make sure he's completely dry before putting on his underwear. He is finishing brushing his teeth, rinsing his mouth a final time, when Jongin peeks in.  
  
"Hyung are you almost finished—" Jongin's breath catches in his throat, and there is an obvious shift in the atmosphere that Kyungsoo doesn't miss. "I didn't know you weren't…"  
  
Kyungsoo thinks he might like Jongin's glazed eyes and red cheeks. His wolf likes it, too. Jongin is backing up, his head banging on the door frame, and Kyungsoo can smell, taste, see his urgency to get away before he humiliates himself.  
  
Remembering Yixing's advice, that he needs to show Jongin he likes him, Kyungsoo reaches out and lightly grabs Jongin's arm. Jongin swallows audibly, and Kyungsoo pulls him inside the bathroom, shutting the door with his toe.  
  
"Hyung?" Jongin's skin still glistens with sweat. His shirt is disgusting and he smells strongly of exertion. His hair is curling and frizzing, and his lips are dry. "I can wait. Until you're done, I mean. It's fine, I just thought—"  
  
"Jongin," Kyungsoo says, stepping closer to kiss Jongin's collarbone and then down the center of his chest, just above the low scoop neck of his shirt. Jongin breathes out, and hiccups at the end of it. Kyungsoo feels like he's cornered a rabbit. "I like you."  
  
"O-okay," Jongin says. "But what are you…  _Oh._ " He presses full lips together as Kyungsoo jams his hand down into Jongin's underwear to grasp Jongin's half-erect cock. It's warm against his palm, and as he adjusts his grip, Jongin releases a nasal gasp and swells some in Kyungsoo's hand. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Proving that I like you," Kyungsoo says. He  _does_  like Jongin, for reasons he still can't explain. Maybe because Jongin is sweet and pretty and follows Kyungsoo's directions and has this distinct scent that Kyungsoo will never be able to forget.  
  
"You don't have to…" Jongin's face is beet-red. Kyungsoo experimentally slides his thumb over the tip, using his other hand to drag Jongin's underwear and pants down to make everything easier.  
  
Jongin's got a lovely dick. It's pink and thick, and Kyungsoo, for the first time, can tell the difference between the kind of hunger he feels when he sees food and the kind of hunger he is feeling right now.  
  
Moving his hand faster, tightening and loosening his grip, he carefully watches Jongin's face to figure out what he likes. Jongin seems to prefer it when Kyungsoo is less careful. Less gentle. Kyungsoo files that away for later examination and instead enjoys the soft noises and the subtle buck of Jongin's hips and his complete and total control. Something savage inside of him loves the trembling in Jongin's knees and the way Jongin's eyes are begging Kyungsoo to stroke faster, do  _something_  more.  
  
He licks his lips and Jongin makes this strangled sobbing sound. Kyungsoo tilts his head to the side and considers.  
  
"I think," Kyungsoo says, "that next time, I would like to use my mouth." He presses with his thumb into the slit, and Jongin pitches forward, slumping and resting his hand on Kyungsoo's shoulder as he comes all over Kyungsoo's hand.  
  
"Hyung," Jongin says, and Kyungsoo, impulsively, kisses his cheek, just in front of his ear.  
  
"Take a shower," Kyungsoo says. "You're all sweaty."  
  
Jongin straightens, struggling to catch his breath. He looks at Kyungsoo like Kyungsoo is amazing or something, and Kyungsoo is surprised to feel the wolf making contented sounds at Jongin's scent now, which is slightly more tinged with Kyungsoo.  
  
Kyungsoo turns on the faucet to rinse his hand, and Jongin shuffles uncertainly behind him, finally wrapping his arms around Kyungsoo in a hug. Kyungsoo stiffens at first, but then he relaxes into it, letting Jongin express himself the only way he knows how. Jongin nuzzles his nose into the nape of Kyungsoo's neck, and Kyungsoo is frighteningly aware of how big Jongin's hands are where they press flat against his bare stomach, and how hard he is inside his underwear. He needs to think.  
  
"Jongin," he says more firmly. "Shower."  
  
"Yeah," Jongin says, reluctantly stepping back. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you all sweaty again."  
  
Kyungsoo turns off the faucet and turns to look at Jongin, sweats and underwear halfway down his thighs and eyes hopeful and wide. Kyungsoo smiles at him. "Shower, and then you can come to bed," Kyungsoo says, and he leaves the bathroom, shutting Jongin inside behind him.  
  
"You look happy," Joonmyun says, as Kyungsoo walks past the living room. Chanyeol, who has his legs in Joonmyun's lap, seems intrigued. Kyungsoo can hear Baekhyun in his room, watching sketchy videos on his laptop, and knows at least half the reason Chanyeol is out here with Joonmyun.  
  
"Just taking some advice," Kyungsoo says, and Joonmyun raises both eyebrows as Chanyeol narrows his eyes. "Good night."  
  
㊊  
  
Jongin blushes whenever Kyungsoo looks at him, too nervous to stay close for too long. In some ways, it's endearing. In other ways, it leaves Kyungsoo feeling like he's under a microscope, since everyone  _totally notices_  that Jongin is suddenly finicky.  
  
"I heard you finally manned up with Jongin," Jongdae says, and Kyungsoo scratches at his own head, contemplating what kind of answer Jongdae wants. Ugh, but his body betrays him, flashing hot at the memory of Jongin's face as he comes, and Kyungsoo has to train his eyes on the floor and concentrate on the argument between two members of the custodial crew four rooms down to calm himself.   
  
"That's none of your business," Kyungsoo says, and Jongdae laughs.  
  
"Like you don't always know what everyone else is up to," Jongdae says. ✮✮That! Isn't Kyungsoo's fault at all. It is just hard to keep secrets from someone who sees and hears, well, pretty much everything. "Anyway, I don't want to hear about your sex life, I just wanted to congratulate you on making Jongin look even more soppily infatuated with you. It was a feat I thought impossible."  
  
Kyungsoo is going to protest that  _really_ , one handjob in the bathroom does not equal a ✮sex life ✮, but he's not actually any kind of expert on it. Besides, he can feel Jongin's eyes on him and then he's too busy looking up and getting lost in them to care about Jongdae's pleased snickering.  
  
"My work here is done," Jongdae says, interrupting Kyungsoo's staring, and Kyungsoo closes his eyes, trying to refocus. His inner wolf is doing more of that howling.  
  
"Don't..." he says, and Jongdae leans closer to catch Kyungsoo's words, "tease Jongin too much. He's... shy." Jongdae's eyes go so wide it's like he's impersonating Kyungsoo, before he smiles cheerfully and nudges Kyungsoo with his elbow.  
  
"That's what makes it so fun," says Jongdae. "But don't worry about your puppy, I won't hurt him." Kyungsoo's chest constricts at Jongdae's words.  
  
 _His puppy_  sounds dangerously accurate, and makes it ✮extremely ✮ difficult for Kyungsoo to pay attention to anything but the wolf inside of him, who would like very much to pull Jongin close and feel him tremble under his touch.  
  
㊊  
  
It takes four days for Jongin to finally gather the gumption to do something. Kyungsoo doesn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't Jongin, who has won tonight's shower battle, to come into their room naked and wet and crawl onto Kyungsoo's bed. "You're wet."  
  
"You're dry," Jongin replies anxiously. Kyungsoo is just wearing underwear, prepped to get into the shower after Baekhyun, who was right after Jongin, but it's still more than Jongin is wearing. Jongin's towel is in a heap by the door, and he's on all fours, completely nude in front of Kyungsoo, who scoots back to give him room.   
  
Jongin swallows, and Kyungsoo follows water drops with his eyes, down Jongin's strong shoulders and into the dips of his muscles. Then Jongin reaches out with both hands and spreads Kyungsoo's legs apart, so he can come and sit on his heels between them. His hands aren't steady, and his nervousness would be palpable even to someone without Kyungsoo's superior senses.  
  
His outer thighs brush the inside of Kyungsoo's knees, and Kyungsoo frowns. "What are you doing?"  
  
"I just want to... return the favor?" Jongin says, pressing his hand flat to the front of Kyungsoo's underwear. Kyungsoo furrows his brow, before hesitantly carding his hand through Jongin's soft, wet hair. "From before. You know. In the bathroom." The curls of his new perm catch on his fingers. "Please let me?"  
  
"Mmm," Kyungsoo says. His teeth are digging into his lower lip, and Jongin's hand does feel  _nice_ , so nice, curling around Kyungsoo's cock like that.   
  
"I was thinking about this," Jongin says in a rush. "In the shower just now. Wondering if you would let me touch you."  
  
Kyungsoo knows that already. He'd slammed his mind closed as quickly as he could when Jongin's thoughts had taken a loud, graphic turn. He's sort of surprised that the guys in the living room, even without this freaky mind-reading thing he's got going on with Jongin, couldn't hear Jongin's thoughts. Kyungsoo thinks he might have to settle for being permanently tomato colored for the duration of whatever this thing is between himself and Jongin.  
  
 _It could be, you know, forever,_  says that annoying, ✮asshole✮ voice in the back of Kyungsoo's head.  _You are part wolf, after all._  
  
Kyungsoo tells that part of him to shut up as Jongin pulls his nails down Kyungsoo's pale stomach. "Were you?" Kyungsoo asks faintly.   
  
"I kind of... think about it a lot," Jongin admits. He won't meet Kyungsoo's eyes. Instead, he's staring at the lines left behind by his nails. "Think about touching you." His voice has dropped to a whisper. "All the time, really."  
  
Kyungsoo... Or, really, Kyungsoo's wolfy alter-ego, and is there really a difference between those two things worth noting????  _loves_  this hush of Jongin's words. Loves the way Jongin seems to be confessing to Kyungsoo. "Really?"  
  
"Yeah," Jongin says. "I can't help it. It's like I'm... drawn to you. Or something." He buries his face in Kyungsoo's stomach, and it has Kyungsoo squirming from the tickling feeling.  _"That is so embarrassing, Jongin, stop talking."_  The words are muffled by Kyungsoo's skin, but Kyungsoo hears them as clearly as though Jongin had shouted, and he feels them, too, hot breath and dry lips.  
  
His fingers tighten in Jongin's hair and pulls. Jongin looks up at him, lips parted, and yes, Kyungsoo thinks, that's exactly what it's like. Like he's drawn to Jongin. "Don't be embarrassed," Kyungsoo says. "You can touch."  
  
Jongin's hand, still warm and firm on Kyungsoo's crotch, relocates to pull at the elastic of Kyungsoo's underwear. "Is it all right if I..."  
  
"Mmm," Kyungsoo, answers, releasing Jongin's hair to slide a hand down to cup his jaw. "I think... I'd like it."  
  
Jongin's face becomes determined, like Kyungsoo has given him a mission. He pulls on the elastic of Kyungsoo's boxers, and Kyungsoo lifts his hips to make it easier. Jongin shoots him a surprised look, and it tears at Kyungsoo. It's weird and sentimental and Kyungsoo has never felt like this. Kyungsoo, in his whole life, cannot remember a time when he wanted, so badly, to be touched.   
  
He doesn't go immediately for Kyungsoo's dick. He stretches up for Kyungsoo's shoulders, smoothing down the skin with a flat palm. He brushes his thumbs over Kyungsoo's nipples and dips his lips into the curve of Kyungsoo's hipbones. Finally, his hands return down to Kyungsoo's thighs, pulling Kyungsoo's underwear down and off, first his left leg then the right.   
  
The touch of his fingers is feather light, but it is enough to make Kyungsoo want to scream. There had been a boy in Kyungsoo's second year class who'd bragged to his friend about getting a handjob from a third year, and Kyungsoo had listened with only mild interest from the other side of the classroom, keeping his eyes on the board and trying to fathom the reason behind his excitement. Now, now, he ~gets it~. He understands that thrill, because the way the pads of fingers run up the skin of Kyungsoo's erection is both thrilling and suffocating. "Is it okay?"  
  
Kyungsoo refrains from rolling his eyes, and instead rolls his hips. Jongin laughs, kind of, and Kyungsoo likes that sound. He looks down at Jongin, on his knees between Kyungsoo's spread thighs, and it's  _sexy._  Kyungsoo feels late to a ✮~very important party~ ✮, but he figures better late than never.   
  
Jongin gains confidence, his hand wrapping all the way around Kyungsoo, stroking him up and down with slow and steady flicks of his wrist. "Is this how you touch yourself?" Kyungsoo asks, and Jongin flutters his eyes at him.   
  
"No," Jongin says. "I like it..."  
  
"Rougher," Kyungsoo guesses, and Jongin nods.   
  
Hearing it, it's like holding out raw meat to a hungry wolf, which, well, is a totally apt simile, and Kyungsoo sits up, cupping Jongin's face and pressing their mouths together. Jongin squeaks in surprise, falling into Kyungsoo, one hand reaching out to catch himself and the other loosening around Kyungsoo's cock as he becomes distracted, maybe by the heat of Kyungsoo's skin or the slip of Kyungsoo's mouth against his.   
  
"Hyung," he gasps, and Kyungsoo pulls Jongin down with him, accepting Jongin's weight on top of him, and enjoying the way the wolf inside him keens happily at the complete press of skin on skin. Jongin is careless when he dries himself off, and the water still lingering on his skin is cool against Kyungsoo's heated body.  
  
Jongin thrusts down, involuntarily, and Kyungsoo digs his fingers into Jongin's slim hips. "I might bite, Jongin," Kyungsoo says. Jongin's hand opens, to grab his dick and Kyungsoo's in the same hand, working them together. "You don't want me to bite you."  
  
Jongin's arm, the one supporting him, quivers, the muscles flexed."Maybe I do," he replies, and Kyungsoo's balls tighten, his stomach not quite hurting. All his muscles are tensing, and it is similar to how he feels, before he transforms. Just as wild, but less frightening. Jongin's hand is not gentle as he strokes, and he can hear the change in Jongin's breathing, same as he had earlier in the bathroom, and knows Jongin is as close as he is.   
  
He watches Jongin's face, for a moment, his vision picking up the beauty in how Jongin's hair clings to his cheeks and the redness of his mouth from Kyungsoo's kisses, and the pink flush at the tips of his ears.   
  
It is only a moment after Kyungsoo comes that Jongin shudders above him, following after with a thin, soft whine. His arm gives out, and he falls completely into Kyungsoo, trapping his hand and their come between them.

"I think," Kyungsoo says, "you might have to take another shower."  
  
Jongin's breath is a puff of warm air against Kyungsoo's shoulder. "Can I share yours?"  _Maybe that's too forward maybe I'm reading this all wrong--_  
  
"Stop thinking so loud," Kyungsoo says, and Jongin lifts his head to look at Kyungsoo. "And stop worrying so much."  
  
"Your eyes," Jongin says. "They're all gold again."  
  
"Does that make you nervous?" Kyungsoo asks. He thinks, maybe, the gold is there when the wolf is closer to the surface. He can feel the wolf, prowling beneath his skin. It's not frightening. It just feels right, strangely, and Kyungsoo doesn't want to think about that when he can instead think about how soft Jongin's skin is.  
  
"It's a pretty color," Jongin says, and Kyungsoo can smell and taste Jongin's sincerity. Jongin is so  _weird_ , not being afraid that his... that the person he's in bed with has all these unexplainable quirks that could be,  _are_  probably bad for Jongin's well-being. "It's part of what makes you... you, you know?"   
  
The come is cooling and sticky on his stomach, and yes, he thinks Jongin could share his shower. "You're dumb," Kyungsoo says, and Jongin's eyes shudder. "It's cute."  
  
"I'm not cute," Jongin protests.  
  
"Let's go shower," Kyungsoo says, knowing that, eventually, he'll need to tell Jongin more than he's already told him, but not wanting to do it now, when Jongin's happiness is rolling off of him in waves.   
  
㊊  
  
"And what's this?" Yixing says, as they stand backstage at M!Countdown, waiting for their performance. He has Jongin's shiny, blinged out shirt clutched in one hand, and his other hand is skating across the skin at Jongin's waist, where the shape of Kyungsoo's fingers is etched into the skin in the form of bruises.  
  
Jongin winces and pulls down on his shirt. "Hyung," he says, and Yixing laughs. "Hyung,  _stop._ "  
  
"I'll bet you didn't say stop last night," replies Yixing, and Kyungsoo clenches his jaw at Yixing's hand touching-- "Kyungsoo? Are you okay?"  
  
Kyungsoo realizes that he's actually, probably, looking pretty scary as he stares at Yixing. He can tell his proverbial hackles are up, and though it is satisfying to feel Yixing shudder in fear he probably doesn't understand, intimidation is not useful before a performance. "Fine," Kyungsoo say shortly, looking away from them both to watch T-ARA finish up their new song, a catchy number that Kyungsoo has gotten stuck in his head more than once.  
  
There isn't any reason to be jealous. No reason to fantasize about separating Yixing's head from his neck, especially since, though infuriating, Yixing is his  _friend_ , and since Kyungsoo's whole incognito werewolf thing would be blown to actual ✮smithereens✮ if he dismembered a band mate in a fit of teenage-esque jealousy.  
  
Kyungsoo is not used to being snuck up on, but Jongin's hands on his shoulders come as a surprise. He turns his head, and when he sees Jongin's tiny smile, over his shoulder, Kyungsoo just  _has_  to take a peek into his thoughts. He catches both pleasure and shock in Jongin's thoughts. It's as though Jongin never suspected that Kyungsoo might be upset if someone else touched him like that, which Kyungsoo thinks is ridiculous because hasn't Kyungsoo made it clear that Jongin is his?   
  
Maybe he hasn't. Kyungsoo is kind of in the dark about how this kind of stuff works. He's been avoiding his conversation with the man in Ulsan, and what it entailed. He does  _not_  want to think about ✮✮mating things✮✮ or the fact that his awkward dance with Kim Jongin is probably something he can't control at all, thanks to some bite he got when he was just a kid, not even old enough for school.   
  
He should, probably, just think about the upcoming performance.   
  
"Don't worry," Jongin says. "I don't like Yixing. I like you." Jongin squeezes his shoulders and steps away, just as Baro, today's guest MC, introduces them.   
  
There is a horrible, inconvenient feeling of being stabbed in the chest with an icepick, or some other sharp pointy painful object, that accompanies the pleased barking of his ~inner wolf~, and Kyungsoo wishes he had just gone through regular, humiliating puberty right alongside Chanyeol back when he was still a teenager.   
  
"Ready to hit those high notes?" Baekhyun asks, and Kyungsoo 'accidentally' kicks him in the shin as they run out on stage to get in their positions.  
  
㊊  
  
Jongin kisses him, and Kyungsoo, in a rush of emotion that is scary, wants to bite down into Jongin's neck and leave a mark just like the one he's got on his lower back. Which, he knows, is a ~very bad sign~. A sign that he needs to be locked up in his bedroom at his parents' house again this month, even if it means his mom is going to ask him uncomfortable questions about his  _feelings_.  
  
"Stop," Kyungsoo says, voice shaking. "Jongin, let me go."  
  
Jongin immediately moves away, hands dropping from Kyungsoo's waist like he's been electrocuted. "What? What's wrong?" He's got that panicked, about to be kicked look on his face that Kyungsoo hates because it makes him feel guilty. Kyungsoo takes a big breath, filling his lungs with air that still overwhelms him with  _Jongin_  so it doesn't help at all.  
  
It's too close to the full moon. Kyungsoo is too on edge. He needs to get away from Jongin. "It's just... I'll explain, later." He quickly separates himself from Jongin, putting as much space between them as he can, moving back to his own bed. "It's not safe."  
  
"Not...safe?" Jongin is bewildered. His thoughts are wild, and Kyungsoo slams his own mind shut to keep from delving into them. Kyungsoo calms himself by casting himself wide, listening to a little girl buy spicy ddeok from a street vendor half a kilometer away, and tasting the apprehension of a middle school student at hagwon down the street, and smelling the blood on the counter at the butchers. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Go to sleep," says Kyungsoo. "I'll.. explain."  
  
"Will you?" Jongin asks, and Kyungsoo pulls his covers over his head and struggles to think of peaceful things, like rainbows and butterflies. It doesn't help at all.  
  
㊊  
  
He puts it off the next morning. It helps that Jongin is skittish. Kyungsoo makes ironic parallels to Little Red Riding Hood in his head, and sits on the opposite side of the table at breakfast. It doesn't stop him from snarling at Baekhyun when he drapes himself across Jongin's shoulders.  
  
"You might as well tattoo your name on his ass," Baekhyun says snarkily, looking cranky. ((✮✮Kyungsoo knows he had some kind of argument with Sehun last night, about Zitao and ropes that probably has to do with his 'tying people up' thing that Kyungsoo isn't supposed to know about.✮✮)) "Right under  _Property of_. Save yourself some stress."  
  
Chanyeol laughs, too loud for early morning, his princess hair tucked behind his ears as he shovels food into his face.  
  
"Behave," Joonmyun says, probably too amused to mean it. Chanyeol immediately stops laughing, looking to Joonmyun for approval, and Joonmyun pats his arm.  
  
Kyungsoo looks down at his breakfast and dodges Yixing's interested look.  
  
But they have no schedule today, which means eventually, it is just the two of them, lying side by side on Kyungsoo's bed, and Kyungsoo thinking that Jongin seems especially appetizing. "I'm going to my parents' again, tonight."  
  
"You're looking feverish again," Jongin says. "I don't think I'm helping this time."  
  
"No," Kyungsoo says. "You're not."  
  
Jongin grabs Kyungsoo's wrist. "Your skin is getting hot again. It's always hotter than other people's, but it gets  _really hot_  sometimes."  
  
Kyungsoo pulls his wrist free and gets up onto one elbow, letting his hand support his head. He looks down on Jongin, considering. "Do you really want to know?"  
  
Jongin scrunches his nose up. He looks like a kindergartener. Except not really, because he's naked and chisled and seductive, which are not words that Kyungsoo wants to associate with kindergarteners  _ever_. "Only if you want to tell me." He nibbles at his lip. It makes Kyungsoo want to lean down and bite it. Maybe draw blood. "You don't have to. You can just leave it at different, if you want." Jongin uses his toes to touch Kyungsoo's calf, and Kyungsoo lets him. "It doesn't... make a difference. About how I feel, I mean. About. About you." He's rambling, and Kyungsoo is amused.   
  
"It might, actually." Especially if it's Kyungsoo's ✮werewolf hormones✮ that even made Jongin look at him in the first place. "When I was four," says Kyungsoo, using his index and middle fingers to walk down the flat line of Jongin's chest, the fabric of his shirt bunching, "my parents left me alone in the park."  
  
"Alone?" Jongin pouts. "That's so dangerous, hyung."   
  
"It wasn't on purpose," says Kyungsoo. "Apparently, I had a tendency to wander away." Once, Kyungsoo had wandered onto the subway and rode the orange line all the way to the end of it, down to Suseo, and been rescued by a group of ✮ circus performers ✮ on their way back from a show at Jukjeon Shinsaegae.  ((There were reasons the unicycle story had seemed plausible, even to a teenage Kyungsoo.))  
  
"Did you?" Jongin laughs. "I was always a clinger."  
  
"No one is surprised," Kyungsoo says, and then smiles to take the sting away. Jongin seems kind of embarrassed, but not really. Not in that  _'I wish the earth would open up and swallow me alive'_  way that Kyungsoo has gotten used to, over the years. "But yeah, one day I wandered away and got lost."  
  
"Lost?" Jongin looks concerned for child-Kyungsoo, which is stupid and superfluous, considering Kyungsoo is right here, alive and breathing and only occasionally alarming in his behaviors.   
  
"Yes," Kyungsoo says. "Lost." He stops his fingers, flattening his hand on Jongin's chest, feeling and hearing Jongin's heatbeat beneath his palm. Jongin is not afraid. Kyungsoo knows it is close to the full moon, and that his eyes must be that gold color and that his body must be burning hot enough that Jongin can feel it through his clothes. But Jongin is just looking at him, waiting for him to continue. A curl of possession, as tenacious as ivy vines, twines up his ribs. "I got bitten."  
  
"Bitten?" Jongin hesitates. "By what? Like a snake, or a rabid squirrel, or..."  
  
"Do you remember," Kyungsoo says, "when we watched that zombie movie a couple of months ago?"  
  
"I  _hate_  zombie movies," replies Jongin. "Of course I remember. All I did was hide my face in your shirt until you ran away from me." Jongin's eyes widen. "I mean--"  
  
"Yeah," Kyungsoo says. "That's... pretty accurate." Even if Kyungsoo would like to think of it more as a  _tactical retreat_ ✮✮. "Anyway, you said you believed in the supernatural."  
  
"I do." Jongin's gaze has become more puzzled.   
  
Kyungsoo focuses on Jongin's heartbeat. He can hear Chanyeol and Zitao bickering in the kitchen, about pizza or something dumb like they always do, Chanyeol being intentionally belligerent and Zitao not understanding why. The other members are scattered around the dorms, only Baekhyun up to anything of note, not that Kyungsoo wants to note it, because what Baekhyun gets up to in his free time isn't really Kyungsoo's business. Everyone carrying on as though it is a normal Saturday morning. It is, for everyone else, but for Kyungsoo, it is the first time he has even considered telling anyone about his ~furry little secret~, and that makes it, well, an extraordinary Saturday. And Jongin's heartbeat is still steady.  
  
"I was bitten by a werewolf, Jongin." Kyungsoo can smell Jongin's distinct musk, but still no fear. Jongin's eyes are round, mouth open in shock, but he still, the stupid kid, doesn't look afraid.   
  
"Really?" Jongin licks his lips again, and Kyungsoo is tempted to lean down and kiss him. Only he should wait for Jongin to process his confession. "So are..." He clears his throat. "Are you a werewolf?"  
  
"Yes," Kyungsoo says, trying to make it sound easy-breezy, like it isn't the weirdest thing he has ever said to Jongin. "That's why you like me. Because of my wolf stuff." At least that's what Kyungsoo has pieced together, from the scraps of knowledge he has gathered.   
  
"No it isn't," Jongin says. He is confident, and it throws Kyungsoo off. Jongin's hand comes up to rest on top of Kyungsoo's above his heart. "I like you because you're you." It's like some bogus line that Jongin has stolen straight out of Coffee Prince, and Kyungsoo should be grossed out because he  _hates_  cute things, but for some reason he finds himself smiling. There is also relief, that Jongin is still lying here next to him, still touching him.   
  
"Are you sure?" Kyungsoo leans down, so that his lips brush Jongin's, and Jongin lifts his head off the pillow to close the gap. It's a sweet kiss, and even this is too much. Kyungsoo gasps at the way hunger (he's not sure which kind) shoots through him, both ice-cold and lava-hot. He wants... He wants... "Jongin!"  
  
Breaking the kiss, Jongin looks up at him, as hazy and disoriented as Kyungsoo feels. It is almost like Jongin feels it too. The weird pull. "Does this have to do with the full moon?"  
  
"Maybe," Kyungsoo says. "Or..."  
  
"Or what?"  
  
"Maybe," say Kyungsoo, untangling himself from Jongin's embrace. He isn't sure how they got tangled in the first place. It's too hot. Kyungsoo can't breathe. "Maybe it has to do with you."  
  
"Me?"  
  
"Something about you," Kyungsoo says, getting up off the bed and thinking about the shower, anything but how delicious Jongin looks, "makes me want to claim you."  
  
"Claim me?" Jongin asks, and Kyungsoo's hands tremble as he shuts the door.  
  
㊊  
  
"Where are you going?" Kyungsoo had heard Jongin approaching, so it doesn't surprise him.   
  
"To my parents' house." Kyungsoo takes a sip of his water. "Tomorrow night is the full moon, you know." It is odd to discuss that out loud. Like  _haha, yeah, I'm a werewolf and it is totally normal that I am going to transform into a monster tomorrow night haha._  
  
"You didn't leave, before." Jongin steps further into the kitchen. Kyungsoo sets his glass down. "Is it really because of me?"  
  
"I don't know," Kyungsoo says. "But ever since I started to... Ever since  _this_ ," he gestures between them, "I haven't been able to control it. The transformation, I mean."  
  
"Would it be better if... Yesterday you said..." Jongin covers his face with his hands. It's precious. Kyungsoo waits for Jongin to pick out words.  
  
"At my parents' house, I can lock myself in. The door is reinforced with steel."  
  
"That's not what I--" Jongin's thoughts are a jumble of confusion and swear words that he probably learned from Lu Han, who has the filthiest mouth and is a terrible influence on everyone.  
  
"I'm... I already told you I'm not safe."  
  
"Because you... need..." He scrubs at his face and then drops his hands. Then he steps closer to Kyungsoo, into his personal bubble. Kyungsoo should step back. But he's curious, and he also... doesn't want to step back. "Um," Jongin says, and Kyungsoo cocks his head to the side, trying to decipher Jongin's quickened breathing. "Will you… would you want to…"  
  
"Want to  _what_?" Kyungsoo drags a single finger down Jongin's bare arm, and he shivers. Kyungsoo tastes something like anticipation underneath all that hesitation.   
  
Kyungsoo can't remember why he wanted to go home. Jongin is  _here_ , and so pretty.  
  
"I want…" Jongin stops again, instead reaching up with both hands to cradle Kyungsoo's face. He leans down and kisses him, gently at first, and then with more need, pressing his tongue to the seam of Kyungsoo's lips. Bemused, Kyungsoo lets Jongin take the lead, setting his hands lightly on Jongin's hips and enjoying the warmth of Jongin against his palms.  
  
"What is it that you want, Jongin?" Kyungsoo leans closer, pressing them flush against each other, and Jongin moans in the back of his throat. It's a beautiful sound that Kyungsoo adores, much like the glazed look in Jongin's eyes as Kyungsoo moves from his mouth to his neck.  
  
"To be claimed," Jongin says. "You said that's what you..." Dry lips. This is an unfair attack, Kyungsoo decides. This is like when Chanyeol and Sehun team up for pillow fights against everyone else because they both have the longest arms.★★ "I want that. Too." Jongin blows air out of his nose, like he's bracing himself. "I can't... think about anything else, actually. Since yesterday." The last part, he whispers.  
  
It doesn't seem complicated to strip Jongin of his shirt. To push his hands up Jongin's strong chest as Jongin pulls him close, sucking at his neck and making Kyungsoo want to scrape the skin off his back. Jongin has the best mouth, Kyungsoo decides, and he tastes it again as he fumbles with the zip of Jongin's baggy jeans. They fall easily to pool around Jongin's ankles, and his underwear follows, leaving him stark naked in the kitchen.  
  
Jongin is also frantically tugging at Kyungsoo's clothes, and Kyungsoo lets Jongin divest him of his sweatshirt and his own, much tighter, jeans.   
  
And then, somehow, he's got Jongin pushed down onto the table, tabletop digging into his stomach, knees slightly bent. The air is cool on Kyungsoo's hot skin, but looking at Jongin only makes Kyungsoo hotter. Jongin's cock is hidden under the table, but Kyungsoo knows what it looks like now. He knows Jongin is hard, and that Jongin likes it when Kyungsoo is rough, hand firm at the center of his back, holding him down like this.  
  
Jongin's lovely, pressed against the kitchen table, ass up and smooth. Kyungsoo palms a cheek with his hand, and Jongin shudders. Kyungsoo can only smell Jongin's arousal. "Jongdae told me to avoid the kitchen table," Kyungsoo says. "I didn't understand what he meant until now." He keeps his voice low. The rest of the dorm is asleep, and Kyungsoo would like to keep it that way. ((He can imagine Yixing's smug countenance already.))  
  
"My jeans," Jongin says, as Kyungsoo reaches under the table to grab Jongin's cock. "The left pocket?" Kyungsoo strokes Jongin a couple more times before he releases him, squatting down to pick up Jongin's discarded jeans.   
  
There's a small bottle, and Kyungsoo examines it. "Where did you get this?"  
  
"Baekhyun gave it to me," says Jongin, like that explains everything. It probably does. "You can use it to..." Whatever he wants to say is cut off by the snap of the lid. Kyungsoo squirts a bit of the slippery liquid onto his fingers, discerning immediately what it's for. Just to be sure, he squirts out more, enough to coat both of his hands.   
  
"Tell me if I hurt you," Kyungsoo says. The fever still rages, but it feels more like he's waist deep in the ocean than drowning under a waterline far above his head. Jongin is trembling, but his thoughts, the ones that drift into Kyungsoo's head, are  _so sure_. Kyungsoo guesses they both have wanted this for long enough.   
  
"You won't," Jongin say confidently, and there is that trust again. Jongin needs more self-preservation, Kyungsoo thinks, as he takes one slick finger and drags it down the crack of Jongin's bare backside. Jongin whimpers, and Kyungsoo wants to make him do it louder, so that everyone in the whole world knows Jongin is his. That he belongs to Kyungsoo. "And," Jongin adds, "I like it when it hurts a little."  
  
"Have you ever done this to yourself, Jongin?" Kyungsoo's question comes out a growl. He circles Jongin's hole with his index finger. "I'm just curious."  
  
He doesn't answer. He pushes back with his hips, encouraging Kyungsoo to get on with it, and Kyungsoo is normally patient to a fault, but he wants this as much as Jongin does, and his nerves are fried.   
  
Pushing a finger in, he and Jongin hiss in unison, Kyungsoo at the tightness of it all. He wriggles the finger around, instinctively knowing to reach around Jongin for his erection again to distract him from the penetration. "More," Jongin pants.   
  
He is willing to oblige. Part of him is hysterically screaming  _You don't!!! Know what you're doing!!!_  but the rest of him is totally into the softness of Jongin, the heat. It feels good, and Kyungsoo knows that it will feel better.  
  
Two fingers is a harder sell than one, but soon Jongin is muffling his gasps in his arm as his other hand holds onto the table's edge. "Hyung," he says. "Hyung,  _please_." So Kyungsoo hooks his fingers down to stretch him faster. At the push of Kyungsoo's fingers into his walls, Jongin chokes on a scream. "Again," he says urgently, and Kyungsoo doesn't hear anyone waking, so he does. Soon he is massaging the area, not sure why it is making Jongin's thighs shake but taking advantage of it to give Jongin another finger, spreading them apart.  
  
He takes a moment to just... look at Jongin, who is flushed and gorgeous right now, just for Kyungsoo. The feeling of ownership consumes him. "No one else is allowed to see you like this," Kyungsoo says, and Jongin turns his head, to look at Kyungsoo. His lower lip is engorged, like he has been biting it to keep the noises at bay. The wolfy part of him, so close to the surface, is proud of the way Jongin's back arches. Of the way Jongin is so thoroughly under his control.   
  
"I don't want anyone else," Jongin says. "Since I was seventeen, I've only wanted you."  
  
Jongin is the only person Kyungsoo has  _ever_  wanted. And that sounds like something out of Coffee Prince, too, ✩✩ only Kyungsoo has the sense not to say it aloud and sound like a total sap, unlike Jongin. ✩   
  
He pulls his fingers out, and Jongin's hips try to follow him.  _Still a sunflower,_  Kyungsoo thinks. "Should I use..." There had been a condom, in Jongin's pocket, along with the lubricant, and Kyungsoo is sort of bemused that Jongin had gotten him to comply so easily to this. Kyungsoo had been so stubborn, before. He fingers the condom, before deciding it will be less messy like this, for Jongin. It is hard to rip open, with his hands all slick, but he manages.  
  
When he pushes in, hands slipping where they grip Jongin's waist, Jongin scrambling for a better grip on the table as his knees wobble, Kyungsoo thinks his fever has never been higher. He must be burning Jongin, everywhere they touch, and the pleasure sits heavy behind his eyes. Jongin's thoughts broadcast.  _More please move so good more_  and Kyungsoo seats himself all the way inside, wanting to catch his breath. He leans forward, so that his chest is over Jongin's back and he can lick at the sweaty skin of Jongin's neck.  
  
"Mine," Kyungsoo whispers into Jongin's ear as Jongin shivers beneath him, around him. Kyungsoo can feel the wolf simmering just beneath the surface. "All mine."  
  
"Yes," Jongin says, arching his back. Kyungsoo bites down on his shoulder, careful not to break the skin, and Jongin grunts, groans, whimpers. "Yours."  
  
It feels like a ritual, or a spell, the way they bind together.  
  
Kyungsoo pushes into him deeper, harder, relishing the way that thing which had been restless inside him has finally quieted, and only Kyungsoo's desire remains, heady and strong.  
  
Jongin comes first, cheek mashed into the wood and the table holding him up as he buckles, and the rapid clench unclench of him sends Kyungsoo over the edge after him, frenetic and hazy and wild, and Kyungsoo, in his head, is half wolf as he slams in one last time, the front of his thighs hitting the back of Jongin's, Jongin a quivering mess underneath him.   
  
Kyungsoo is calm.  _You make it worse, but then you make it better,_  he had said to Jongin, and it is so  _completely true_. Jongin, who for the past three months has been making Kyungsoo feel a second away from snapping, has soothed the same beast he riled. The theoretical and literal beast, Kyungsoo concludes.  
  
"How do you feel?" Kyungsoo asks Jongin, tying the condom and dropping it into the trash. Luckily, it's going out tomorrow, and it's Kyungsoo's turn to take it to the dumpster. Jongin laughs, breathless.  
  
"Fucked," Jongin says, and then his face suffuses with color. "Did it... work?" The shape of Kyungsoo's teeth is so nice, so  _nice_  in the skin of Jongin's shoulder.  
  
Kyungsoo evaluates. He looks down at Jongin and all he feels is possession. He doesn't feel moments from tearing anything apart. Which is also lucky, because the only thing around is Jongin, and Kyungsoo is sort of, kind of, ✮irreparably✮ fond of him.  
  
"I think it did," Kyungsoo says, smoothing his hand once more down Jongin's spine. Jongin shivers at his touch. He remembers the man, in Ulsan, saying it would stop when he mated. He remembers his high school biology textbook, saying wolves mate for life. "You might be stuck with me now." He lets his hand stop at Jongin's shoulder, feeling the indents his teeth have left behind. Not a bite. Just a reminder.  
  
He feels comfortable in his own skin. The wolf is sated with this.   
  
"More like you're stuck with me," Jongin says.  _Maybe he hates that maybe he doesn't want someone as clingy as I am maybe--_  
  
"Stop thinking so hard," Kyungsoo says, and then he kisses between Jongin's shoulder blades and feels happy and complete.  
  
㊊  
  
Movie night is different when Kyungsoo doesn't feel outrageously ill. Jongin is still a koala, latched on to Kyungsoo's arm. Kyungsoo doesn't mind.   
  
Tonight there are nine of them, and they're watching a different sort of monster movie. Jongin isn't scared, this time, except for the occasional flinch and burrowing into Kyungsoo's neck.  
  
"This is cheesy," Baekhyun complains. "No one cares about a teenage werewolf. And there's no way that girl would want to date him after she found out he was a magical transforming beast."  
  
"If she really... likes him, she's not going to care about something like that," Jongin says, before he snaps his mouth shut. He peeks at Kyungsoo, checking if he's upset, but Kyungsoo has reached a stage of Jongin-acceptance that he thinks might mean he's like, in love, or something  
  
"Jongin, fighter for ♡romantics♡ everywhere," Chanyeol says, hand edging closer and closer to Joonmyun's leg. Interesting.   
  
"That's totally gross, Jongin," Sehun says, cuddling into Zitao's side. Baekhyun is purposefully not looking at them, but it doesn't mean much because Kyungsoo heard all three of them last night. Baekhyun must have won, on the ropes thing. Zitao's wrists are red, and Sehun's knees are bruised. "Leave all the mushy stuff elsewhere."  
  
Joonmyun looks tempted to point out that Sehun and Zitao are wearing matching bracelets and have linked their pinkies, but he seems to think better of it.   
  
"Leave my boyfriend alone," Kyungsoo says, eyes focused on the screen. Jongin, next to him, jerks in surprise before he sighs happily, and Kyungsoo realizes he's never really put a name to what is between them. It's not the right word, but he knows  _mate_  would not go over easy with this crowd, and Kyungsoo prefers not to get into that discussion with everyone else just yet.  
  
"~Oooooh~," Yixing says, stretching his fingers. Chanyeol swats his hands out of the way because they're blocking the screen. "~Boyfriend~"  
  
"Hey guys?" calls a voice from the kitchen. No one hears but Kyungsoo, who turns to see Jongdae looking curiously at his hand. Kyungsoo, with a sense of dread, smells the air, and knows exactly what it is on Jongdae's hand. "What is...  _oh my go--_ "  
  
Jongdae shrieks and Jongin collapses with some combination of laughter and embarrassment into the crook of Kyungsoo's neck.  _I knew I forgot something,_  Kyungsoo thinks, petting Jongin's soft hair and fighting a smile.


End file.
